A SELECTION 



FROM THE 



WRITINGS 



OF Tlia LATK 



JONATHAN LAWRENCE, JUNIOR 



Stolen from hours I should have tied 
To musty volumes at my side ; 
Given to hours that sweetly wooed 
My heart from its study's solitude. 

Thoughts of a Student 






NEW YORK. 



M DCrC XXXIII. 






Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by 

SLEIGHT & VAN NORDEN, 

in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
Southern District of New York. 



■^LKIOHT & VAN NORDEN, PRINT. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The publication of the following selection, from the 
writings of the late Jonathan Lawrence, Jun., has 
been undertaken by the desire of many of his friends, 
and at the particular request of a literary association, 
of which he was for several years a zealous and 
active supporter. In preparing these remains for 
the press, limited as the circulation of the work will 
be, the Editor is conscious that he is acting contrary 
to what would probably have been the wish of the 
author, with regard to productions written during 
the intervals of assiduous application to the studies 
and duties of his profession, and with a few excep- 
tions, not intended for the public eye. Anxious as 
he feels not to send forth into the world anything 
calculated to detract from a reputation dear to him 



iv INTRODUCTION. 

as his own, he cannot but be aware of the disadvan- 
tages under which this work appears without the 
supervision and correction of its author. It is 
deemed unnecessary in a pubUcation hke the present, 
to enter into any detailed account of a hfe, which, 
marked by few events of interest, had been passed in 
preparing for what promised to be a bright career 
of usefulness and honor. To enable the reader, 
however, to ascertain the age of the author at the 
several periods when the following pieces were 
written, it may be proper to state that Mr. Lawrence 
was born in the city of New York, November 19th, 
1807, and died April 26th, 1833, before he had com- 
pleted his 26th year. The language of panegyric is 
alike needless, for to those who knew him eulogy 
would be superfluous, and by those who were un- 
acquainted with his character, it might be attributed 
to the influence of partial aflection. The object of 
this publication, intended solely for the eye of friend- 
ship, will have been fully answered, if it shall some- 
times recall the remembrance of one certainly not un- 
worthy of the sympathy and regret which his early 



INTRODUCTION. v 

"death has called forth. The Editor would be doing 
injustice to his own feelings, were he to conclude 
these brief remarks without expressing his deep 
sense of the kindness of those friends who have 
aided him with their advice and assistance in pre- 
paring the following pages for the press. 



M DCCC XXXIIl. 



^if' 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Algernon Sidney, ... 1 

Dialogues of the Dead, No. 1, 17 

" " " No. 2, 25 

A Dream, 33 



PAGE. 

On the Poetry of Burns, . 41 
On the Mission to Pa- 
nama, 55 

On Enghsh Comedy, . . 63 



POETICAL PIECES. 



PAGE. 

The Lost Ship, 77 

The Indian, 80 

To a Chained Eagle, . . 83 

The Feast of Belshazzar, . 87 

To Pompeii, 90 

The Martyr, 93 

The Clouds, 98 

To May, 102 

Forget Me Not, .... 105 

Forest Leaves, 107 

Missolonghi, 109 

To , 112 

Changes, 114 

Thoughts of a Student, . .117 

Signs of Love, 120 

On a Seal, 124 

Translations from De Be- 

rano'er, 126 



PAGE. 

To , 131 

Lines on the Death of a 

Young Lady, . . . .134 
Stanzas on Lord Bvron, . . 137 

To , ...".. .140 

Sea Song, 143 

To , 145 

My Choice, 148 

Cowper, 150 

To , 155 

Look Aloft, . 158 

Morning Musing among tKe 

Hills, 160 

Eleory on Afric, .... 163 

To^^ , 165 

Hymn, 168 

Lines vv^ritten in an Al- 
bum, 170 



ON THE 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



ALGERNON SIDNEY. 



ALGERNON SIDNEY 



The Revolution, which dethroned Charles the First 
of England, and ultimately conducted him to the 
scaffold, though for a time it established in his room 
a sovereign equally arbitrary, may yet be justly 
regarded as the seed which has produced the plen- 
tiful harvest of British freedom. It opened the eyes 
of the nation to the slavery under which it had so 
long and so grievously labored ; it laid the axe to 
that tree, which, under the name of prerogative, had 
been spreading its roots and branches to poison with 
its embraces every part of the constitution ; but 
above all, it led to that free spirit of inquiry and 
discussion which combines and perpetuates all those 
advantages which it is the first interest and object 
of tyrants to crush, and of patriots to uphold ; well 
knowing, that wherever and whenever it exists, it is 
the source as well as the security of freedom. " Give 



4 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 

me," says Milton, "the liberty to know, to utter, and 
to argue freely, according to my conscience, above 
all liberties." Whether there be any complete justi- 
fication of the spectacle it exhibited — a monarch 
condemned by the voice of his own subjects to die 
the death of the malefactor — we are not competent 
to determine ; but we have to blush for the absurdity 
of the doctrine that in our age would make his death 
a solemn cause of national hypocrisy. The prin- 
ciples of Charles were by no means such as would 
entitle him to the appellation of a martyr, and the 
errors of his education, though they may in some 
degree palliate his misdeeds, are not surely to confer 
upon him the crown of the saint, who, having 
endured and suffered all things in a holy cause, has 
finished a life of faith by a death of glory. Who 
that can think for a moment of Stephen or of Paul, 
would be willing to tarnish the dignity of martyrdom, 
and the brightness of the martyr, by a comparison 
that is at once unjust and insulting. He had talents, 
in truth, that might have adorned even his high sta- 
tion ; virtues, which in private life would have made 
him an invaluable citizen : but as a king, as the ruler 
of a people jealous of their freedom, he was danger- 
ous both from disposition and ability ; and whatever 
may be said of his character, we are content for our 
part, as we are willing, to acknowledge in every trait 
of it the wisdom of that providence which gave our 



ALGERNON SIDNEY. 5 

forefathers a monarch who, "neither to be instructed 
by experience, nor persuaded by argument," compel- 
led them to appeal, as victoriously and triumphantly 
they did, to the rights of man, and to the God of 
battles. Irritated by the conduct of the sovereign, 
and anxious to assert the rights he had withholden, 
the people of England were again arrayed in civil 
combat, and in the only cause that can vindicate 
such a scene — the cause that involved their own and 
their children's happiness. "The man," says Home 
Tooke, " must be hard-hearted indeed, who does not 
let fall a tear for every drop of blood shed in such a 
struggle, however just the quarrel;" but we do think 
that our tears in such a cause as theirs, would be 
lighted up by the consciousness of duty if unfortunate ; 
or if successful, by the proud and pure exultation that 
should arise from, such a victory, however dearly 
bought. In the struggle that convulsed England at 
this time, there was hardly a middle course for him 
who felt for the interests of his country, and accord- 
ino^ly we soon find among the leaders of the people, 
the proudly eminent name of Algernon Sidney. 

His family is one of the most illustrious in the re- 
cords of English history. Wit, valor, and generous 
feeling seem to have descended with the name from 
generation to generation ; and beauty, can we forget 
beauty, was theirs. The true knight bore proudly 

his lady's favors in the bannered lists, and felt his 

1* 



6 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 

every effort doubly paid by a smile or a look from 
"those bright eyes that rained their influence, and 
adjudged the prize;" while the deeds of their sons 
were the theme of many a song, the envy of many a 
gallant knight, the secret pride and admiration of 
many a beautiful bosom. The name of Sir Philip 
needs only mention to awaken the finest recollections. 
His were the "hisfh thousrhts seated in a heart of 
courtesy" that encircled his age and memory with 
the last and loveliest laurels of his beloved chivalry, 
and the spirit of that chivalry, the spirit that knew 
not fear or reproach as it animated his living actions, 
drooped and died upon his tomb. The lustre that 
seemed for a while to live after him, was only the sad 
and faint reflection of his glory, like the glowing rays 
that linger upon some clear sunset, and are soon to 
follow it in its departure. Yes ; he was the last of 
those fair spirits who were bravest and brightest in 
battle and bower, whose deeds gave to knighthood 
all its renown, and whose passionate fidelity bestowed 
upon woman her noblest prerogatives ; who united 
the warrior and the bard in a rare and beautiful 
union, whose whole life in fine^ in the language of 
Campbell, " was poetry put into action." Their days 
are gone; but we love to linger with them and amid 
their remembrances. They are the luxuriant spots 
in the dull waste of the chronicles, the fairy land of 
memory in which "the dreaming boy" roves and 



ALGERNOX SIDNEY. 7 

revels until visions of fair forms and bright eyes, of 
knight and lady, of Sidney and of Geraldine, are 
with him, around him, and before him. 

Such were Algernon Sidney's forefathers, and the 
son of such sires, the scion of such a stock, was an 
honor to his origin. What though it was not his to 
dally with, or battle for a "ladye love;" what though 
it was not his to have his name " married to immor- 
tal verse;" his calling was nobler and more exalted; 
and with a patriotism as strong and a soul as gallant 
as the best of his ancestors, he prepared to obey it, to 
follow it " through evil and good," to glorify it in life 
and in death. The cause he had espoused had now 
become the darling of his affections. His talents, the 
rank he had put to hazard, but above all, that firm, 
unshaken integrity that awes the boldest, and ani- 
mates in the worst of times to deeds of almost incre- 
dible success ; these united qualities gave him an in- 
fluence and an independence which few possessed, 
and few dared to exercise during the ascendency of 
Cromwell. But Sidney was neither to be the slave 
of a party, or the tool of an intrigue. So long as the 
future Protector acted for the common weal, Sidney 
was by his side ; so long as he defended the rights his 
countrymen had risen to defend, he found in Sid- 
ney a brave heart, and a willing arm ; but, beyond 
this, he would not go ; this was the point in which 
centred all his hopes, all his exertions ; this was with 



8 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 

him the hue " quam uUra citraque nequit consistere 
rectum." From this time forth his course was plain, 
and bold, and open. He was above disguise, and he 
scorned all fear. His opposition to the schemes of the 
usurper, so long as it could be effectual, was warm 
and ardent ; but he who '< wielded at his will the 
fierce democracy of England," was not to be thus im- 
peded, and obtained in the eventual defeat of Sidney, 
a signal triumph over public and private virtue. 
Wiser than the Roman, warned by his folly and his 
example, Cromwell had seized with the authority 
upon something of the " pride and circumstance" of 
royalty, while his substantial greatness was rapidly 
increasing with the spread of British commerce, and 
the success of his naval and military enterprises. 
Further opposition, therefore, would have been a 
species of heroic insanity, which we may admire but 
cannot pardon in him who should have reserved him- 
self for better days. In this situation, Sidney retired 
to mourn in secret over the prostration of his 
hopes and the prospects of the people, and we may 
conjecture that he devoted this retirement to that 
record of his opinions, which he has left as a valuable 
legacy to posterity. 

His maxims of political truth were regarded by his 
contemporaries as the daring and singular tenets of 
a visionary, though they are now neglected as the 
common place elements, the very axioms of the 



ALGERNON SIDNEY. 9 

science of free governments. Such are the effects of 
proceeding time. That which is to us an ahuost 
tangible reaUty, was enveloped to his view in clouds 
and shadows; that which he saw as "through a glass 
darkly," is displayed to us in the full power and light 
of day. We have seen the almost poetry of Milton 
confirmed into prophecy. We have seen a " nation 
rising like a strong man after his sleep, and shaking 
his invincible locks" — we have seen her throwing 
away her shackles and prejudices, the dimness 
and the indolence of slumber, to secure to her 
children, in a long continued line, we trust, of 
worthy descendants, the blessings of a freedom 
bounded only by the natural imperfections of man. 
If they could have seen this: — If they could have ' 
seen their offspring, proud are we of the name! 
founding in another and distant world an empire, 
whose extent none have ascertained, and whose 
future greatness it is beyond the power of the human 
mind to calculate, and that empire " free, sovereign, 
and independent," well might they have exclaimed in 
the spirit of the saint, in the language so beautifully 
quoted by Sidney, on a similar occasion, "Lord, 
now lettest thou thy servants depart in peace, for our 
eyes have seen thy salvation." But to them such 
revelations were dark; they resembled the types and 
shadows of the Jewish hierarchy, whose interpreta- 
tion, indistinctly seen by the patriarchs and prophets 



10 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 

of old, became gradually visible, until they met on the 
cross like the lines of a circle in its centre, so that 
now the Christian is enabled to walk in the light of 
their fulfilment, and in the freedom of the sons of 
God. Such, too, has been, and we trust will forever 
be, the march of liberal political principles, until in 
the fulness of time, the ends of the earth, enlightened, 
redeemed, and regenerated by their influence, shall 
glory in equal privileges ; until the Greek shall again 
crown the bowl of Liberty upon the soil, and beneath 
the sky of his forefathers ; until our southern conti- 
nents shall present with us an innumerable people, 
free, united, and happy ; until the Spaniard shall be 
permitted to hallow the memory of Riego, and the 
Russian shall blush for the ignominy of his servile 
fathers; until, in fine, all nations, of every climate, 
color, and description, shall worship with one accord 
at the altar of the same freedom. 

To return — the death of the Lord Protector opens 
to our view another and different era. Whatever 
may be said of his moral character, Oliver Cromwell 
was without doubt the greatest statesman that ever 
wielded the destinies and the sceptre of England. 
Without eloquence, I had almost said, without the 
powers of speech, he won the affections of the people, 
corrupted the integrity of parliament, and finally, 
subverted a form of government that had lasted un- 
shaken for centuries. His success, in a time when 



ALGERNON SIDNEY. n 

one mistake would have mined his fortunes, is the 
true test of his unequalled abilities. He wanted but 
little of that vaulting ambition which led Bonaparte to 
his rock, and would have led him by the same pro- 
cess to the scaffold. It is worthy also of our obser- 
vation and regret, that one step only would have 
been required to have made him the founder of a 
great republic, and the idol of succeeding genera- 
tions. The crown he had worn descended to his 
son ; but the son inherited not the mantle of his 
father : the fires that had slumbered under the strong 
hand now burst forth with redoubled violence, and 
without energy to subdue, or address to conciliate, 
he resigned his royal dignity, to seek the happiness 
it could not afford. 

The people, wearied out with dissensions, were 
determined to procure repose, even at the hazard of 
restoring the kingly authority ; and with a prospect 
as bright as ever opened on the eyes of any prince, 
hailed with joy and gladness as the hope of the na- 
tion, the second Charles ascended the throne of his 
fathers. Educated in the French court, a libertine 
by profession as well as disposition, he caused the 
chaste cheek to blush for his open outrages of all 
that had been esteemed honorable or virtuous, and 
made the heart of every true Englishman burn 
within him, at this base pollution of the throne once 
occupied by Alfred and by the Edwards. It would 



12 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 

have been well for him if he had inherited the piety 
of his parent ; but he had every vice and wickedness 
of youth, without one of his father's redeeming vir- 
tues ; and we are compelled to declare, that we find 
in his character nothing to check our disgust, or to 
soften our abhorrence. It was a waste, a barren 
waste, "in which no verdure quickened, and no 
kindly plant took root." Upon his accession, Eng- 
land was no longer safe for those whose activity or 
abilities had given them distinction in the previous 
troubles, and accordingly, Algernon Sidney departed 
to await in exile an honorable return, and to hope 
for brighter prospects in his native land. But even 
here, surrounded by courtiers and enemies, he 
displayed the same loftiness of feeling, the same 
fearlessness of danger. Well might the tyrant trem- 
ble before him who had recorded in the face of the 
world as his chosen motto, " Haec manus inimica 
tyrannis ense petit placidem sub libertate quietem." 
But the time was fast approaching when his enemies 
were to satisfy their vengeance with his blood. En- 
couraged by some faint hopes of security at home^ 
he returned to England and to his death. The 
spectacle that met his view was not to be supported. 
The nation rapidly giving way to the strides of 
prerogative, and the parliament seconding every blow 
against their constituents, and glorying in their trea- 
son, were sights that stung him to the quick. He 



ALGERNON SIDNEY. 13 

could not see the righteous perish, and not lift up his 
voice against the foul crime : he could not behold his 
countrymen oppressed and trampled on without a 
struggle, and he was ready to bare his arm for their 
redemption, and against the tyrant. From this mo- 
ment, from the moment in which he offered any 
obstacle to the strides of the court, his doom was deter- 
mined on. He was hunted and dogged in daylight 
and darkness, his servants were traitors to his inter- 
ests, and his house was no longer a refuge. There 
are means to accomplish any end however detestable, 
and he was soon committed. His trial was a mock- 
ery of justice : perjury against him was a virtue, and 
the false witness retired from his seat to receive the 
reward of his labors. There were some, indeed, 
bold enough to protest against such conduct, and to 
present to the mercy-seat, alas, how miscalled ! their 
petitions for redress. But it would in truth have 
savored of madness to have expected either justice or 
mercy where the judge was Jeffries and the sovereign 
was Charles. Amiable association ! The libertine 
king, and the infamous servant, were fit and happy 
companions. " In their lives they were lovely, and 
even after death they shall not be divided ;" the records 
of history shall do them most substantial justice, and 
the names of the real judge and executioner, of 
Charles and of Jeffries, shall descend to posterity 
together. Sidney died upon the scaffold; but the 



14 ALGERNON SIDNEY. 

scaffold's ignominy (terrors for him it could not have,) 
was a word unknown. Consecrated by the blood of 
nobles and patriots, its boards had become holy 
ground, and he but added his name to the long list 
of those who were too firm to be slaves, and too 
fearless to be silent. He has added his name to theirs 
too, in their triumphant justification. Though the 
writers of a day, the minions and mercenaries of a 
party, endeavored to fasten upon him their obloquy, 
and to sully that reputation, which, dearer to him 
than his existence, has " embalmed and treasured up" 
his memory " to a life beyond hfe," with Russel and 
Hampden, he has come purer than gold refined from 
the seven times heated furnace of his persecution ; 
and as long as virtue, valor, and wisdom, shall be 
respected among men, he will illustrate with them 
the beautiful moral of the poet, 

Truth, tho' it troubles some minds, 
Some wicked minds, that are both dark and dangerous, 
Yet it preserves itself, comes off pure, innocent, 
And like the sun, tho' never so eclipsed, 
Must break in glory. 

Above all, it becomes our country to cherish and to 
reverence his name. The principles that have given 
us a rank among the nations, that have bestowed 
upon us our various details of security and happiness, 
founded on the broad basis of equal law and justice, 
and comprehending the free enjoyment of life, liberty. 



ALGERNON SIDNEY. 15 

and property; the principles that have made us 
what we now are, and will make us whatever we 
shall be, he loved, he lived, and died for. It were idle 
to tell you of their influence. You behold and feel 
it in every step you take, in every object that meets 
your view. Ours is not that phantom liberty, that 
licentiousness, which incited the French Revolu- 
tionists to deeds of rapine and murder only to mock 
them by its departure ; but that bounded and char- 
tered liberty, which, resting for its preservation on 
the happiness it secures, can never be lost, while men 
are worthy of its enjoyment. 

Let it be our care, then, to protect it ; and if ever 
the time should come, when oppression, foreign or 
domestic, in any shape or disguise whatever, shall 
seek to weaken it, or to wrest it from us, let us unite 
with one heart and one voice " to crush the tyrant 
while we rend the chain ;" and in the glorious lan- 
guage inscribed upon the tomb of one of Sidney's 
noblest compatriots, let us " never, never forget, that 
opposition to tyrants is obedience to God." 

M DCCC XXVI. 



DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 



DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD 



No. I. 



MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 



" Who is this, 
That with warm veins, and Hmbs and features fresh 
With the sun's Hfe, comes to inhabit with 
The hidden dead?" 

Milton. Yes ! but it was the deed of the people 
of England. The factious tumult of a violent and 
turbulent mob, without perceivable aim or purpose, 
such as we have known in the old times, was not the 
scene displayed in that awful and bloody theatre; 
nor by the hands of a few banded swordsmen, 
without character or provoking cause, did the man, 
Charles Stuart, meet his righteous and just death. 
It was the calm and settled doom decreed him by 
those, upon whom he and his butterfly minions had 
trampled, and whose unsleeping resentment his long 
and unstinted oppressions had kindled. 

Shaksj)eare. But I tell thee, John Milton, the 
people of England were not rightfully nor laAvfuUy 



20 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 

acting, to rise up in armed rebellion against their 
throned sovereign ; him on whom the priests of God's 
holy altar had poured the oil of their consecration. 

Milton. And I tell thee, thou art talking in the 
foolish and bold style of the haughty Tudors : of that 
lustful king, whose marriage bed was defiled with 
divorces and stained with murders ; of that Mary, 
whose blazing faggots, fired to consume the saints, 
seemed almost to rival the light of the sun in heaven ; 
of that strong-handed Elizabeth, the virgin queen as 
ye called her, to whom your own verses, William 
Shakspeare, gave an unworthy fame, an immor- 
tality, which she deserved not. 

Shakspeare. Now, by heavens ! I will not and 
cannot bear it : she was my most royal and loving mis- 
tress, and thou shalt not slander her memory. Did 
she not, woman as she was, but with manly soul, 
raise such a spirit as would have crushed the proud 
Spaniard, if he had set foot on our sea-girt island ? 
Did she not, by her wise counsels, put to flight that 
fleet, that armada, which the pride of the Dons called 
invincible ? For shame ! John Milton — she was the 
friend and patron of poets — for shame ! 

Milton. She was the friend and patron of poets, 
sayest thou ? In what manner she befriended them, 
I know not, unless your starving poets be false, and 
honest poverty tells no lies. The splendid Spenser, 
whose Belphoebe thou knowest she was, tells not much 



MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 21 

of her bounty ; and if fame be not an arrant liar, even 
thou thyself, William Shakspeare, hadst no sufficient 
reward of thy praises, unless empty smiles, and worth- 
less favors, could purchase house and raiment ; but 
thou art wandering from the point. Nero was the 
friend of poets. I reproach thy loving mistress, as 
thou callest her, for upholding those proud and blas- 
phemous doctrines of divine princely right, which 
her unhappy descendant, by supporting, hath lost both 
sovereignty and hfe; and I upbraid thee for approving 
such doctrines. If the eagle can soar to the sun, he 
must needs see the spots on its surface. 

Shaksjjeare. Aye, but what if there be no spots 
to see ? and if there be, I am no eagle to soar to him. 
Bandy me no compliments ; they are the counters 
with which keen men win fools money ; but if thou 
wilt reason, I will talk to thee. Answer me then, 
John Milton ; was not the government of England 
a noble and free government, limited and checked, 
and yet strengthened by the strength of a wise and 
virtuous monarch, honored and graced by the spirit- 
stirring memories of her ancient and brave barons, 
and healthy and vigorous in the independence of 
her proud peasant yeomanry ? 

Milton. I tell thee again, William, thou art jeer- 
ing and trifling with me ; truly, the government of 
England was checked by the strength of the mon- 
arch, which I would the rather, and more reasonably 



22 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 

call an overweening despotism ; and for the enduring 
influence of your time-honored nobility, (honored in 
no other way that I wot of,) were they not court 
flatterers, and brawlers, and revellers, like Leicester 
and Essex, living in the false smiles of a weak headed 
woman, when they should have been foremost in 
opposing the avaricious greediness of her preroga- 
tives ? or like those swash-bucklers, their followers, 
drabbing and dicing at gambling houses and brothels, 
shorn of their strength by enticing Dalilahs, when 
they should have been in the field, breaking in sunder 
the chains of the people? And as to your proud pea- 
santry ! What were their representatives — so called, 
I fear me, in jest — what these commons of England, 
but slaves and parasites ; to whom your queen gave a 
bone when they fawned, and a buflfet when they bit ; 
cowardly dogs, who shrunk from her hand, and 
slunk from her presence ! I would that thou hadst 
lived in our times ! 

Shakspeare. And I would not, that I had lived 
to see the royalty of our Alfreds, and Henrys, and 
Edwards, prostrated, and the temple of God levelled 
before a rabble of low-born men. If these be the 
happy times ye prate of, when kingly blood was spilt 
like stagnant pool water, and priests' mitres cleft by 
the hand of damned faction, I care not to have seen 
them ; nay, I am more than content to have lived 



MILTON AND SHAKSPEARE. 33 

under the peaceful and pure reign of good queen 
Bess, the Hon heart of England. 

Milton. Then live upon that, thy fair memory. 
I envy thee not. For my poor self, I rejoice that my 
lot was cast in better and freer days, when kings, 
who misgoverned, found not a protection in their 
tinsel trappings, and men who presumed to wield the 
fiery indignation and cleaving curse of God against 
the unshackling of consciences, priests of Bel and 
the Dragon, that unholy union of church and state^ 
which the inspired power of our Daniel hath rent in 
sunder, and laid bare to shame and scorn : when 
these men, I say, have been torn from their fat livings 
and riotous merriment, their stalls of lust and bigotry; 
and as for that rabble of which thou talkest, I tell 
thee once again it was no rabble : it was a whole 
people, a whole nation, rising up with one accord to 
smite the persecuting Pharaoh, amid his purple and 
guards, not only with prayers and oiferings, but 
with the arms with which God himself had armed 
them. Had he not enforced, (answer me this,) had 
he not enforced many of our best and bravest to flee 
from his tyranny into the strange lands beyond the 
waters? Is not many a hearth-stone cold, that 
should be warm with the fires and hospitality of 
merry England, while they, who in by-gone days sat 
around it, are wandering in the cold, and roofless, and 
shelterless wilderness ? Hath he not outraged our 



24 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 

rights and laws, and the hard-won charters of our 
hberties contemptuously set at nought? and should 
his pride of place, as thou thyself hast called it, protect 
him from the vengeance of a trampled people ? I tell 
thee, William Shakspeare, the blood of Charles Stuart, 
the tyrant, shall fatten the fields of England. Its crops 
shall not be armed men, as in the old fable we read 
of, but a harvest of glorious principles ; and our pos- 
terity shall look back to us, and bless us, for that we 
have not submitted to wear the chains with which 
he would have fettered our frames, and them through 
us. But thou wilt not listen to me ; go to, then, enjoy 
thy dreams of fiction and the remembrance of thy 
revels with the ungodly ; for me, I offer my morning 
and evening and unceasing thanks to Him, for his 
gift of power and strength to refute their sophistries, 
and tear in pieces, and scatter to the free winds 
under the firmament, the cobwebs of the hired crew 
who would pull down the strong defences of our 
righteous cause, and restore the young wolf to batten 
himself, and to redden his jaws in the blood of the 
innocent and the righteous. 



M DCCC XXVI. 



DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 



No. 11. 



CHARLES IL AND COWPER. 



Cowper. But posterity, your majesty, gives your 
reign little credit for virtue or wit. They say that 
you were abandoned ; caring little for God's law, or 
the law which yourselves had made. 

Charles. Little credit for virtue, saidst thou? 
Why we were anchorites by the side of France, with 
her eternal revellings and bare licentiousness, her 
maskinofs and mistresses ! We did but imitate her 
gayeties, and even those at an humble distance. 

Coy^per. Yes ! and for this imitation they cen- 
sure you. They say that you and your courtiers 
corrupted the bold spirit of our English Barons, to 
make them supple Frenchmen and effeminate flatter- 
ers. That the quick and manly honor, which would 
have found favor in the eyes of our old princes, our 
Harrys and Edwards, yielded with thee to fawning 
and profaning baseness ; and that thou thyself, thou, 
Charles of England, became a pensioner of France, of 

3 



36 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 

that France whose fields were red with the victorious 
blood of their ancestors and thine ! Was this foul 
charge true ? 

Charles. Have they gone so deep into kingly- 
secrets ? But it was true, too true. Yet they should 
remember, that the resources of our kins^dom were 
weakened, and that we needed money to support our 
state and government. It was to prevent the burdens 
of taxation. 

Cowper. What ! take bribes from France because 
England was poor— and to support thy government ! 
History says it was to supply thy pleasures, and to 
provide for court mummeries. And because Eng- 
land was poor? — for shame! I had rather it had 
been told that Englishmen were beggars, t?ian that 
their sovereign should wear the collar of a descendent 
of St. Louis : their prince be the pander of foreign 
France ! I blush for thee and my country; for was 
there ever a time, tell me, when England was too 
poor to pour out her heart's blood for her wise laws, 
her pure religion, her natural throne? But what say 
you for your licentiousness and courtly adulteries? 
What of the marriage bed profaned with impunity, 
aye, and with praise, and all by thine own example ? 

Charles. Pshaw, man ! Why I tell thee our 
days were glorious and peaceful days — rebellion 
was punished and loyalty rewarded. 

Cowper. Aye; the rebellion of Sidney and the 



CHARLES II. AND COWPER. 27 

loyalty of Jeffries ! Charles Stuart, the blood of that 
man cries from the scaffold against thee! It was 
awfully avenged on thine infamous minister. 

Charles. Avenged, saidst thou ? My vengeance 
was but slight on him who leagued with Cromwell 
and Bradshaw to murder my father, and then shrunk 
from his blood ; who retired to the groves of Pens- 
hurst, given to his ancestors by my ancestors, that he 
might not look upon the innocent victim. Why did 
he not gather some of the spirit of his sires from the 
old oaks which, until then, had never shaded trea- 
son or traitor? Why did he not come out, and cry 
against the deed on hill and house-top, in palace or 
prison ? Was he to be visited in mercy ? 

Coioper. Nay ; but it would have been madness. 
Thou thyself mightest as well have rushed upon 
Cromwell in his "pride of place," among his puritans 
and guardsmen, instead of crouching in disguise with 
thy father's friends, and waiting for occasion. And 
I warrant you, the old fox would have received you 
with open jaws ! But thou saidst thy days were 
glorious and peaceful days. 

Charles. Aye ! and say it still. Was not Eng- 
land called merry England in my days, and was I 
not its merry monarch ? It is true, I did not pray 
and fast in public to blaspheme and banquet in pri- 
vate, as did the regicide hypocrites. And besides, the 
people had been kept so long in sackcloth and ashes 



28 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 

by those canting roundheads, that they called for 
some relaxation, for diversions and amusements. 

Cowper. Diversions and amusements, sayest thou ; 
and peaceful and merry ? There was a time when 
the war-cry of St. George for merry England would 
have been hushed on the battle-field, if such merri- 
ment as thou talkest of had stained the escutcheons 
of our nobles, soiled the ermine of Justice, and dis- 
graced the princely sceptre : days, when amusement 
and diversion did not stand in our clear language for 
blasphemy and shamelessness. Well may we blush 
for thy reign, for prince and people; and on thee 
must the accusation rest. When they who sit in 
high places are open wassailers and unjust slaves, 
what think you must the subjects be? How can 
the low lands but be overflowed when the torrent 
rushes from the mountain? Your father was at 
least pious and moral. 

Charles. Aye, and was beheaded for his piety 
and morality, and his son was ever determined to 
shun his fate. But I will bear no longer thy re- 
proaches and rebukes. 

Cowper. Well, then, let us change the subject. 
Posterity says ye were low in wit as ye were high 
in vice ; and that ye did not even redeem your degra- 
dation in morals by your splendor in genius, which 
sometimes, like the exhalation from a marsh, throws 
a lustre around corruption. Do they say true ? 



CHARLES II. AND COWPER. 29 

Charles. Why, I do not think we were over- 
stocked with philosophers ; but we had some singing- 
birds. I bethink me now, there was the sweet and 
melancholy Cowley, and my own frolicksome friend, 
Rochester : a little wild perhaps, but a jovial fellow ; 
and Tom D'Urfey ; a merrier bard never trolled 
ballad, nor poured off bumper. His songs were 
exquisite ; the very darlings of true cavaliers. There 
was Buckingham, too, mine own counsellor ; and 
there was Lovelace and his Althea. Love was his 
element : he was a gallant and a loyal knight ! 

CoiDiier. And was there none other ? Cowley, I 
grant you, was musical in his melancholy: some- 
what conceited; but he had the true English vein in 
him at times. And Dryden : hast thou forgotten 
him with his majestic march of verse ? Rochester 
was a pest and a disgrace, Buckingham and Tom 
D'Urfey are forgotten, " requiescant in pace ;" but 
think ! was there not one more ? 

Charles. Not one more ! What or whom mean 
you? 

Coivper. Was there not one Milton, one John 
Milton ? 

Charles. Aye, some did say he was a goodly poet, 
that same writing roundhead : who was worse than 
Cromwell, the arch-fiend himself; for the Protector, 
as they called him, fought openly and boldly, but 
this rhymer was better pleased with his safe closet for 

3* 



30 DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD. 

a field, his beggarly books for soldiers, and his false 
pen for a sword. Cromwell could only touch my 
father's body; but he, this lurking assassin, wounded 
his fair fame. But in our time he was done with 
his tractates ; and his manifestoes and answers were 
thrown to the dogs ; and his verses, by the side of my 
gay Rochester's, were like the pipings of Marsyas 
to the divine reed of Apollo. Aye ; my noble 
Rochester ! he was your man for a pretty girl or a 
drinking bout ! and yet he handled the pen well too. 
Why, I tell you, Milton was but a chirping grass- 
hopper to him. 

Coivper. Milton a chirping grasshopper to Ro- 
chester ! Why, he is the prince of poetry ; and the 
verse of your age is identified with his name. He 
divides the palm with Shakspeare; and Rochester 
is forgotten when Milton is mentioned. 

Charles. Ods fish, man ! why thou art running 
on finely ! What, John Milton ; the psalm-singing 
independent, the lying secretary, the blind proser ! 

Cowper. Aye, wonder as you will, and jeer as 
you will. That blind John Milton was a very sun- 
daring eagle in the firmament of English genius. 
He is the glory of England, and the pride, aye, and 
the disgrace of your own reign. I tell you again, he 
is a twin prince with the immortal of Avon. Ye 
thought, indeed, that he was mad, when he told you 
of his destined immortality; and ye said that he was 



CHARLES II. AND COWPEE. 31 

overpaid with the paltry ten pounds, which yonr 
booksellers gave him ; but he knew better, and the 
fame he prophesied is ignominy to the fame he pos- 
sesses ; and the ten pounds multiplied by tens of 
thousands, would never repay, if dross could, the 
price of his labors! He was blind, say ye? but he 
saw farther than the clearest sighted of you, for he 
saw, through the mists of obloquy and disgrace, the 
light of his glory. He was poor, say ye? but he is 
richer than the proudest of ye, in the fair memories 
of men. He was a psalm-singing independent, say 
ye ? but the music of his pure and holy devotion 
shall die not but with our language. But I grow 
wanton in his praise. I tell ye, then, for all, that 
the Wind beggar, the rhyming secretary, and the 
psalm-singing independent, is remembered as the 
second father of EngUsh poetry, and not the least 
honorable or honored of English patriots. 



M DCCC XXVI. 



DREAM 



A DREAM 



I AM a dreamer. The visions of the night have 
power over me — terrible and magical power. Sleep .^ 
that gives to the worn and weary of this world 
an elysium of fairy sights and unreal enjoyments, 
or better still, the "sober certainty" of repose, 
plunges me into scenes of the wildest and busiest 
commotion : into the most inaccessible haunts, where 
the light of the glorious sun would seem to have 
striven with the spirits of darkness, and to have 
yielded in the strife: through the dungeons of the 
inquisition, poisoned and foul with the venomed 
breathing of its brute inhabitants, or sad and sor- 
rowful with the recorded griefs of those who have 
made friends of fetters : amid the moving mountains 
of the great deep, with its silent tales of " tall and 
richly freighted argosies," of forms of manly beauty, 
and hearts of manly pride and power ! Such are 
the scenes to which I am transported, to realize in 



35 A DREAM. 

fancy the agonies which reality has inspired. Never, 
never^ after all that I have seen and acted, can I 
deny the influence of the imagination upon its 
covering of clay, even unto the pangs of death. I 
can believe on this point almost beyond the bounds 
of credibility and credulity, from the observation of 
this influence upon myself While others are laugh- 
ing at the stories founded upon it as the excited 
efforts of the imagination, I too can laugh at those 
who would limit or define the faculties which God 
hath wisely appointed to be mysteries unto us, but 
which, in his hands, are controlled to advance his 
inscrutable purposes. I have seen those, who 
scouted the idea that such "things should overcome 
us like a summer cloud," staggered and confounded 
by facts, which could not be questioned without a 
declaration of scepticism with regard to any and all 
human evidence. Reason becomes ridiculous when 
it is applied to test this wonderful influence. But to 
my dream. It is the last and most distinct. Every 
thought, every hope, every " fear that kindled hope," 
every longing and disappointment, are living and 
burning within me ! The hot tear, the hurried grasp, 
the long struggle, the last bubbling cry, that told the 
end of the combat, all " run molten still in memory's 
mould," in clear, and strong, and imperishable im- 
pressions. It is on this account I relate it. Many 
may have had such dreams, but in few, perhaps, 



A DREAM. '^"7 

have they been so luminously, so indelibly stamped. 
As I write, I shudder at the recollection. You may 
have imagined from my expressions that it was at 
sea. It was so. Our vessel was large and strong : 
her sails were bellying to the breeze ; all was fair 
above, around, beneath ; the long blue waves sunk 
gently under her hull as she leaped and pranced 
upon their backs. It was the hour of evening. None 
but those who have been on the ocean can conceive 
the glories of that hour. The broad red disk of the 
sun, dipping and burying, and covered, in the farthest 
wave that mingles with the horizon ; the mellow and 
trembling radiance that streams upon the top of each 
billow ; the splendid tints reflected in the light clouds 
which are gathered around, as if to witness the death 
scene of departing majesty — I could almost have 
sworn that Byron's lines were written there in that 
spot, as I uttered with the fervency of a long forgotten 
devotion : 

" Ave Maria ! over earth and sea, 
This heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee." 

It was evening — yet a few moments, and the 
shadows on the waves grew darker and darker : the 
sails looked in the growing obscurity like the white 
wings of some vast sea bird hurrying to her nest, 
until at length all was lost in undistinguishable 
blackness : and it was night. " A change came o'er 



38 A DREAM. 

the spirit of my dream." There were hurrying and 
trampling of feet, and oaths mingled with the voice 
of command. The canvass was in ribands, and 
now and then by the lightning we could discover its 
fragments, torn and white, among the irregular 
waves. The timbers creaked. The water through 
which onr ship was flying, rose along her sides in 
mingled flame and foam, and looked when the 
sudden gleam lightened over it like the hot flanks 
of the gallant steed. Among the men there was no 
muttering, no sound, no sign of cowardice. The 
flash which showed the face of a seaman showed the 
face of a hero. They looked like men who knew 
their doom was come : that to repine was folly, to 
resist was impossible. They clung indeed to the 
rigging, but it was with the convulsive grasp that 
marks the predominancy of natural instinct over the 
firmest resolutions, and the most fearless spirit. One 
by one they were swept away — not a groan, not a 
sound was heard ; but after the rush of each wave, 
the question that hastily uttered remained unan- 
swered, told eloquently and sadly, that "another unit 
was withdrawn from the sum of human existence." 
As for myself, I had hopes — I clung to my hold 
benumbed and wearied. The gray and sullen 
morning dawned. Yesterday it dawned on many a 
stout form, and warm heart — the strength of the 
one had been useless, the warmth of the other was 



A DREAM. 39 

cold for ever. I looked in every direction to discern 
a sail. Nothing was to be seen, but the billows 
heaving and swelling, as the wrestler pants after a 
desperate conflict. The vessel was sinking slowly 
but surely. I dragged myself by strong efforts to 
the top. Here was the last plank that separated me 
from the devouring element. The water rose 
gradually. I gazed eagerly till all sight seemed to 
be lost. I felt the water as it touched my foot. 
It rose. It was up to my neck. I loosed my hold 
with a shriek. I rose and sunk, and rose and 
sunk again. I felt the water bubbling from my 
mouth. I sunk down, down, down among hideous 
forms. There were the whale, and the kraken, and 
the dolphin. I knew by the blackness I had reached 
the bottom. I felt around. There was a voice 
calling to me. It called me once, twice, and again ; 
and I awoke to hear the awful sound that summoned 
me to breakfast ! 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 



The people of Scotland have always been famed 
for the sweetness and variety of their music and 
song. The causes of this reputation, may, we think, 
be easily traced in the circumstances which attend 
their lives, and form their habits. We believe it is 
now pretty well settled, since the time of Montes- 
quieu, that the influence of climate and country on 
the character, is extremely great. The gayety and 
light-heartedness of the French peasant, may easily 
be attributed to the productiveness of his soil, and 
the kindly beauty of his sky; the luxurious 
indolence of the east, to its enervating breezes and 
" lazy pacing clouds" ; the proud and haughty 
freedom of the Enghsh, to their insulated situation, 
and their melancholy but generous feeling to their 
clouded heavens , and the wilder independence of 
the Scotch and Swiss, together with their more 



44 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 

moderate excitement and saving prudence to their 
mountainous and barren hills and heaths. It is this 
last cause of Scotch peculiarity which leads us back 
to the subject of our essay, the poetry of Scotland, 
and chiefly of Burns. It is this very face of its 
country, which makes Scotland the land of song. 
It is this, which led to the sub-division into feuds 
and clans, which in their turn produced martial 
feeling and limited communion among themselves, 
the sources of those strains which express and echo 
in every note the strength of their attachments and 
their enmities. Every mountain peak, every valley 
and cave and loch, were known from childhood to 
the dwellers in their recesses, and were familiar to 
their imaginations, as the abodes of unearthly spirits, 
or mingled in their memory with some wild and 
wondrous deed. To this fact, we may refer for the 
love of locality which ctiaracterizes their songs. 
They abound in allusions to peculiar battle-fields and 
trysting knowes. The hero of their verse combats 
amid scenes which yet echo to the gathering cry, or 
to the victorious lay, or to the lament for the gallant 
dead ; or breathes his tale on the rock or in the 
valley which is consecrated to some gentle recollec- 
tion, and has been the haunt of plighted faiths and 
simple loves for centuries. The sub-divisions of 
which we have spoken, led them to such an intimate 
connection with each other, that when there was no 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 45 

monstrous example of oppression, a clan resembled 
a large family closely knit together by mutual 
interest and affection, and all looking up to their 
chief with reverence and duty. Him they were 
bound to follow to battle, for him they were to risk 
and sacrifice life, and fame, and wealth ; and his 
wrongs they resented, and his joys they shared with 
the quick love of children. And in return, he was 
to protect their families and provide for their support, 
to decide their quarrels, and sanction their unions; 
and to be in word and in deed the nursing parent of 
his vassals. Here then are a thousand subjects for 
minstrelsy, and these furnished many a ballad and 
many an air of singular beauty and power, which 
yet live warmly in the memory of Scotland, and 
proudly in the music of the world. But previous to 
the time of Burns, many of the airs were adapted to 
Gaslic words, whose fame was limited to a clan or a 
district. Besides, many, even of those songs which 
had not been sung to the mountain language, 
possessed the peculiar allusions we have mentioned, 
which although giving to them a deep interest to the 
peasantry of the land, rendered them flat and barren 
to strangers. Thus we shall find, even now, that 
an air which still preserves its original thoughts 
and words in parts of Scotland, is clothed in other 
parts, or in other countries, in an entirely different 
dress. Moreover, although there were many names 



45 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 

connected with the authorship of these songs, they 
were imperfectly preserved by rude tradition, or 
hmited in their obscure reputation ; there was yet no 
poet who could be called emphatically the bard of 
Scotland. At length, in Robert Burns arose one who 
might justly claim that appellation, who born from 
the people, was the poet of the people ; who gave to 
their music songs which being nature itself, were 
fitted to find an answering chord in every heart, and 
whose fame not seen darkly through the mist of 
years, will be immortal as the hills of Albyn, and not 
confined to them, the property and pride of the 
universe. Burns was descended from humble 
parents of scanty means, and little education or 
knowledge. His first essays in verse were made at 
the handle of the plough, and though rough of 
course, and unclassical, displayed deep power of 
language and strength of feeling. His life and its 
incidents, it is not necessary to mention. He lived 
and died poor in pecuniary matters. His haughty 
spirit of independence made him often reckless of 
his true interests, and disgusted sincere and long 
suffering friends ; while his careless extravagance 
would have kept him in poverty, if he had inherited 
immense wealth. But we are not to try or judge a 
mind and heart like his, by the rules of worldly 
prudence. His thoughts and impulses were the 
same; his heart and mind, right or wrong, were never 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 47 

separate. He could not reason coldly on a subject, 
for he acted without reasoning. Wherever his 
feelings prompted, his arguments followed; and are 
we to sit in judgment on the creature of impulse and 
circumstance, and expect to find his every action 
regulated by the common caution of every day 
minds? If we are to do this, we must, in justice, 
consent to forfeit the delights of song, the raptures of 
genius, the extended reachings of superior intellects; 
we must lose the fancy of Collins, the promise of 
Chatterton, the English sweetness of Goldsmith, the 
splendid blazing touches of Byron, the image of 
nature and beauty in Burns. I look upon these 
men, as God has made them, foolish, even beyond 
human folly, but wise almost with the wisdom of 
the Deity. I recognize in them, the remains of that 
earlier man who stood upon the subject earth, and 
yet held converse with Seraphim and Cherubim ; 
but only the remains, for even while 1 worship the 
splendid ruins, I lament the wreck and symbols of 
the fall. 

But our business at present is with the poetry of 
Burns, and to that we shall return. He was, we 
have said, the poet of the people. The Scotch have, 
perhaps, a stronger national character than any 
other people, and this character pervades the whole 
country. The poet of one part of the land, and 
especially such an one as Burns, imbued Avith all 



48 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 

their prejudices, and clothing their prevailing pas- 
sions with the magic of his verse, soon became the 
idol of Scotland. Next to Shakspeare, I do not 
know a man whose reputation is so enviable as' that 
of Burns. His songs are known and sung where 
printing could not reach, or would not be of use. 
Every farm and cot, every field and hill, every vale 
and rock, echo to his strains of love ; but, beyond 
this, they reach every heart in every country ; they 
are freshly remembered when the more showy 
efforts of great composers have been admired, mur- 
dered, and forgotten ; they are the delight of palace 
and parlor, and preserve a living place in the affec- 
tions of every man whose soul is open to melody or 
taste. We have spoken of his first efforts as being 
rough but powerful ; but a circumstance, the com- 
mon incident of every life, produced in him conse- 
quences such as few men could feel. He fell deeply 
and passionately in love with a young girl in his 
neighborhood, of low extraction and endowments ; 
but if we may judge from her power over him, of 
extraordinary natural qualities. Whenever he 
speaks of her, his tenderness and purity are wonder- 
ful, and we might fancy them the productions of a 
scholar, did they not possess a grace beyond the 
proudest rules of art ; and after her death, his 
lamentations for her, his cherishing of her memory, 
his recollections of her gentle love, and the tokens 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 49 

they exchanged, are expressed in language to which 
verse could add no poetry. The stanzas beginning. 

Thou lingerino; star, with lessening ray, 
That lov'st to greet the early morn, 

embody the essence of all the tenderness that broken* 
hearted love could feel, and the substance of all the 
impassioned elegies that ever were written. It is 
a singular fact, which we may remark here, that 
whenever he rises into great beauty of song, his 
thoughts are expressed in pure and simple English, 
while his more homely, but not less touching 
passages are dashed with the language and idioms 
of his country. Thus, for instance, when he soars 
in the Cotter's Saturday Night, into something of 
sublimity, he breaks out — 

Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal King, 
The saint, the father, and the husband prays ; 
" Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing," 
That thus they all shall meet in future days, 
There ever bask in uncreated rays. 
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear. 
Together hymning their Creator's praise. 
In such society, yet still more dear. 
While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. 

We have spoken of his love songs. It is sufficient 
to say that they are the finest in the language. 
They form a collection from which true love for 
ages may draw its images, and to whose notes it 

5 



50 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 

will assuredly echo. His humor was uncommonly 
rich and peculiarly Scottish : it consists part of it in 
attacks on the clergy, one or two political satires, 
and some local productions. But his greatest work 
in this line is his Tarn O'Shanter ; a poem, which for 
natural wit, graceful narrative, and eloquent touches 
of reflection, is unrivalled. His description of the 
inn, the landlady, the rising joys of the bacchanals, 
Tam's wit, and the laughing chorus of wretches as 
hen-pecked as himself, the chase of the hags and the 
hair breadth 'scape ; all are before us in living colors. 
One of his happiest works is a medley, which 
displays the versatility of his genius in striking relief, 
together with the looseness of his morality. It 
represents a joyous collection of beggars assembled 
at a frolic, who sing their songs in a wild and lawless 
spirit of enjoyment. The first is the song of a 
soldier, who, like a worn out steed, is yet ready to 
prick up his ears at " the sound of the drum ;" and 
among the remainder, strange to say, is that delight- 
ful music, 

A hig^liland lad my love was born, 
The lowland laws he held in scorn. 

To show his graphic powers of describing, take 
this one verse from the poem. Imagine the jolly 
beggars at the pitch of revel and rapture, and the 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 51 

chief called on to swell the merriment, and then 
read the following four lines — 

Then rising rejoicing 
Between his two Deborah's, 
Look'd round him and found 'em 
Impatient for the chorus. 

It is a picture worthy of Burns to conceive, and 
Teniers or Wilkie to express on canvass. 

The only remaining characteristic we shall speak 
of, is his devoted patriotism and proud indepen- 
dence. He was distinguished always for the latter 
quality, in every period of his life ; and even when 
worn down by disease, his eye dimmed, his spirit 
broken, his energy gone, he asked his publisher 
for money, it was with an air of one who claimed 
a right and conferred an honor. He loved Scot- 
land as a Scotchman always loves her, with pure, 
unaltered, undivided affection. He was her own 
poet in every respect ; he sang of her victories : and 
" Scotts wha hae wi' Wallace bled," would animate 
her sons even in defeat; of love, and the gentle 
swain tells the self-same tale to his mistress in the 
very words of Burns; of her scenes of mirth, and his 
strains enliven many a rainy night, and make many 
an honest Tam, "fou and unco' happy." Those 
who wish to see this spirit of independence, must 
read his letters, and they breathe it in every word, 



52 ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 

while his poems afford a noble marriage of high 
thoughts with homely and yet beautiful rhyme : 

Is there for honest poverty, 
Who hangs his head and a' that ; 
The coward slave, we pass him by, 
And dare be poor for a' that. 

These then were his three great characteristics : his 
descriptions of love in all its shapes, his fund of 
original humor, and his high-hearted and manly 
feelings. These are the qualities which endear him 
beyond expression to his countrymen, and make 
him the property of the world. We are not to look 
in Burns for long and great conceptions, for not- 
withstanding Doctor Johnson's estimate of genius. 
Burns could no more have written an epic, than 
Johnson could write poetry ; and for the same reason, 
it was not in him. But in his peculiar and difficult 
walk he stands alone. Moore resembles him m 
many points : in his love for music, in his humor, 
in his patriotism and independence ; but in all the 
higher qualities of song writing, he sinks far below 
him. He is very graceful, and abounds in beautiful 
conceits ; such as a man of fine imagination would 
utter when he was not in love. Burns on the 
contrary sings a song whose every note is nature, 
and every feeling deep, intense, and absorbing love. 
Moore is a voluptuary — he revels with Eastern 
beauty, is lulled by the waters of Eden, and dreams 



ON THE POETRY OF BURNS. 53 

of dark-eyed houris ; Burns is a simple Scottish 
youth, full of passion, breathing his sighs of every 
day occurrence, and telling 

His shepherd tale 
Under the hawthorn in the dale. 

Moore delights in splendid imagery and corres- 
ponding language ; Burns touches with a single 
simple phrase, a single simple chord, and it stirs the 
whole soul with the thrill of affection. Moore's 
verse is the dulcet eloquence of a practised flute, 
rolling delicious volumes of sound ; Burns is the 
warbling of the bird in his native wilderness of 
boughs ] 

The linnet in simphcity, 

In tenderness the dove, 

But more than all beside, was he 

The nightingale in love. 

We have spoken of his enviable popularity ; and if 
to be enshrined in the heart of a whole people, to 
be claimed and recognized as their poet, to hold in 
subjection and sway at will their prejudices and 
passions, to have one's memory reverenced to 
idolatry, and one's name inscribed first on the roll 
which they have destined to immortality, is enviable 
popularity, Robert Burns may challenge the world 
to display a prouder or a purer one. 

iM nccc XXVIII. 

5* 



ON THE 



MISSION TO PANAMA 



ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 



As this is a question which occupies the present 
attention of the hteraiy world, and has been ably 
and eloquently canvassed on the floor of our 
national legislature, we shall consider it not unbe- 
coming to offer a few desultory remarks on its 
general merits. The principal objection urged in 
the negative, is drawn from the wise and emphatic 
admonition of the first president of our union, and 
the first man of his time. In the last legacy of his 
love and care for our future interests, he exhorts us 
to keep aloof from " entangling alliances." Faithful 
to this admonition, if the object of the proposed 
invitation were to pledge the people of these United 
States to any particular set of measures, or to the 
support of any political crusade, it would well 
become our statesmen to keep aloof. We will go 
further. If its object or effect would be to fetter us 
in any wise, to prevent that perfect freedom which 
we now enjoy and exercise in our choice of 



58 ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 

expedients at home, or in our conduct with foreign 
nations, it would well become them to beware ; but 
unless these objects and this effect shall be proved 
to us, we shall continue to wish for its acceptance. 
As far as the discussion has proceeded, what are 
the proofs ? No alhances are exhibited, no entan- 
glements demanded. The invitation, if we under- 
stand it aright, is general. We are requested to 
send representatives to a congress to be holden 
at Panama. How this can be construed into an 
entangling alliance, we cannot conceive. But the 
genius of politics can and does. Its opponents 
baffled and at fault by the simplicity of this request, 
leaving the dry detail of fact, resort to the more 
fertile soil of conjecture. They tell us we shall be 
entrapped, inveigled, seduced into a surrender of 
our interests. They tell us, we may perchance 
give up our contentment and our quiet, without an 
equivalent, (for if it be true, what equivalent can be 
given,) and that their opinions may not want the 
authority and assistance of a respectable quotation ; 
they bid us, in the language of Washington, to 
beware of "entangling alliances." If this be the 
contracted policy we are to pursue: if, while we 
feel safe for the present, we are not to forward that 
cause which must be our future safety ; we, and the 
advocates of such reasoning, are not capable of 
appreciating the blessings we enjoy. The people of 



ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 59 

the United States, are, in a manner, bound to extend 
by all honorable means consistent with their well 
being, if not to Europe, at least to our brethren of 
America, the rich privileges of independence. But 
let us suppose for a moment, that the purpose of 
this congress be to interpret treaties, and to fix the 
relation of America with European powers : is there 
not sound policy in such a project wisely executed ? 
The time will come, we hope, when all America 
shall be firmly knit and cemented together by a 
general communion of interests and similarity of 
feeling, with regard to the rest of the world. Is not 
this desirable? — and if it be, what can more 
effectually tend to such a result, than such a con- 
gress ? We do not imagine that there will be any 
artifice to delude or ensnare us. It cannot be the 
interest of the South American deputies to involve 
us in difficulties, the evil of which will be attributed 
to, and may return upon them. But to come back 
to ourselves. Are there no injuries to be feared, if 
we reject this invitation? Is our growing com- 
merce, viewed as it is with the jealous eye of rivalry 
by Great Britain, nothing ? Is this prolific branch 
of our wealth in peace, and our safety in war; 
this which supplies, invigorates, and consumes our 
agricultural and manufacturing products, nothing ? 
Can there be no mistakes (laying aside evil motives) 
as to our wants and wishes ? 



60 ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 

Again, on the general ground. Do we not, by 
our rejection, virtually say, to all intents and pur- 
poses, we will have nothing to do with you — we are 
afraid of you — we wish no communion in your 
fortunes — we care not for your friendship or your 
enmity? And is this the language which should 
come from the republics of North, to the republics 
of South America? We think not, we hope not. 
We hope that a more liberal spirit will prevail; 
that the offer freely and frankly made, will be freely 
and frankly accepted; that our delegates will be 
able and upright men ; that they will be instructed, 
not, when they are called on to join in any judi- 
cious act, to raise the watchword of "entangling 
alliances;" but that such a spirit of friendship 
and union will be cultivated, as will make both 
nations^ if they should have to contend with any 
foreign power, not only possibly formidable, but 
certainly triumphant. But turning from these con- 
siderations of its expediency to itself — what noble 
events would attend the formation, and mark the 
proceedings of such a congress, if it should be 
rightly and temperately conducted? Then would 
be presented a spectacle, the moral sublimity of 
which would find no parallel in all the records of 
all the assemblies in the world. Our continent, 
which has been the blessed means of spreading the 
desire for rational freedom, against which neither 



ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 61 

principalities nor powers shall prevail — would then 
consummate its work. In that assembly, which 
would be a meeting, not of kings and satraps to 
assert the claims of a family, but of men to vindicate 
the rights of man; which would be, not a holy 
alliance to settle the inheritance of a legitimate 
prince, to the crimes and follies of a legitimate 
throne ; but the people of a whole hemisphere, 
declaring that hemisphere, by the mouths of their 
delegates and ministers, free, sovereign, and indepen- 
dent — in that assembly would their labors be 
finished. There would be no sectional disputes — no 
local prejudices. It would be the legislature, not of 
South, or of North America — not calculating for the 
petty details of counties, or of townships, and cities, 
and states, and nations ; but the legislature of the 
continent of America, declaring for the inhabitants 
of that continent, of every variety of climate and 
of physical and mental complexions, their relative 
rights and duties. The critics of Europe might 
then inquire, who reads an American book, or 
looks on an American edifice? We could then 
show them the records of such a congress as a reply 
to their first sneer, and turn them, not to pyra- 
mids, that mark and mock the vanity of princes, 
and the servitude of the people ; not to columns 
reared by the spoils of wasted provinces, to comme- 
morate terrible victories — but to the smiling face of a 



62 ON THE MISSION TO PANAMA. 

vast extent of territory, purified by American labor, 
happy through American freedom: an iUustrious, 
and we would hope, an eternal monument of both. 



ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 



ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 



The present state of literary exertion is certainly- 
presented to us in a singular aspect. There is an 
astonishing diffusion of knowledge among the 
middling and lower classes of society. The school- 
master (to use the often quoted sentence of Brough- 
am) is abroad in the land, and the rays of science 
are penetrating into the hovels of the poor and the 
ignorant, with an influence as warm, and almost as 
rapid, as the light of the natural sun exerts on the 
shadows of the morning twilight. This influence 
may be ridiculed and denounced by the aristocratic 
slaves of legitimate opinions ; they may laugh at the 
excesses of those who feel, for the first time, the 
worth and the strength of their own minds ; but the 
day is coming, and that quickly, when these would- 
be autocrats in the realms of learning shall find the 
strength of their efforts whom knowledge will make 
free, when the puny powers which think to stop the 
triumphal car shall be crushed beneath its wheels. 



6* 



66 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 

and like the original elder enemies of man, shall 
curse while they worship, and tremble while they 
beheve. While, however, we rejoice at the glorious 
prospect, and prophesy that the present generation 
is sowing the seed of a rich, moral, and mental 
harvest, we must be allowed to offer a few 
preliminary observations on the question : whether 
this increase will tend to the production of great 
literary works. The argument in favor of the 
affirmative, is extremely forcible. It is true, that 
the advance of knowledge will increase the call for 
books, and their value when obtained. But un- 
fortunately, we do not think, that in literature, the 
supply will always be ready for the demand. 
Take, for instance, our own time. Let us cast our 
eye over the wide extent of Great Britain, and our 
own country, with their vast reading population, 
and then ask for the great literary productions to 
satisfy their cravings. We do not speak now of the 
useful arts ; in these the age is fruitful ; but we ask, 
where are our epics and our dramas. Our plain 
answer must be this. Our epics are not, except we 
take Wordsworth, and Southey, and Barlow, as 
successors to the bard of seven cities, and the swan 
of Mantua, and our own Milton ; and as for the 
drama, we ask pardon of Shakspeare and Fletcher, 
and Ben Jonson, while we compare them with the 
rant of Maturin, and the bashful failures of Lord 



ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 67 

Byron. The fact is, although we have not ma- 
turely considered the subject, we are half inclined 
to think, that the different aspects which literature 
formerly presented from that which it now exhibits, 
resemble the difference between a country, whose 
general appearance is barren, but its mountainous 
parts sparkhng with gold, "flaming as rival to its 
sire, the sun," and the broad level savanna, waving 
with rich grain, but presenting fewer eminences to 
the eye. And yet we should not complain of this 
result. We should, be willing, that the luxuries of 
literature should be sacrificed to the diffusion of its 
cheaper comforts. We have, however, sadly wan- 
dered from our original subject, which was the very 
fertile one of English Comedy, and the result of our 
meditations may be shortly comprised in the remark, 
that it has exceedingly degenerated. The cause of 
this degeneracy is said to be chargeable to the age. 
But we do not feel so much faith in this assertion as 
do those who are interested to believe it. Men are 
the same in all times ; and human nature is never 
finely displayed without applause. Are we to be 
told, or can we believe, that if Shakspeare or Ben 
Jonson were now to arise, and lay open the hidden 
secrets of the heart, their works would be delivered 
to empty benches? Are we to think that our 
intellects are too gross to enjoy the wit of Benedict, 
and the moralizing of Jaques, and the poetry of The 



68 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 

Midsummer Night's Dream? And that our vulgar 
intellects can receive no enjoyment, but from 
painted shows and tinsel mockeries of state and 
splendor ? We do not believe it. The fault is not 
in the buyers, but the sellers. We ask for the 
delights of mind, and they tickle us with the 
fooleries of sense ; we ask for that which shall 
improve the heart, and make a lasting impression 
on our conduct, and they give us only what is 
calculated to gratify "the gaping eye of idiot 
wonder ;" we ask for the nutriment to support, 
and the business to occupy a man, and they thrust 
upon us the sugar-plums and the rattle of a child. 
We are not to be told that all the flowers are 
gathered, and that there can be no room for 
originality. Can any man, who knows the infinite 
variety which mankind affords for wholesome satire? 
believe this? We answer, no. Why did not 
Sheridan make the same objection, and throw by his 
pen. But he ventured into the field, and success- 
fully pointed the finger of public scorn at the vices 
and follies of his day. Since his time, we have 
gradually grown worse, and now, forsooth, satire 
sleeps and folly stalks unblushingly through the 
land. While we thus mourn over the decline of 
English Comedy ; it is delightful to draw upon its old 
stores for present use, and turn to those writers who 
have made it illustrious and immortal. The first 



ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 69 

we shall notice is Shakspeare. His comedies are 
remarkable for being comedies in the true sense of 
the word. They are not mere broad farces, as most 
of our modern comedies are ; but unite pathos 
and poetry with exquisite wit and humor to a 
degree never before equalled. They are wonderful 
also in the generality of their characters. There 
are but two or three of these throughout his 
works, which are individualized, strictly speak- 
ing: all bear the general stamp of a particular 
class of men, and each class exists now as it did 
then, so that the stronger points of his satire are 
as striking in their present as in their former appli- 
cation. Take, for instance, the character of Bene- 
dict, and no man has seen too little of human 
nature to know that he has met with many having 
the same general characteristics. He has not indeed 
encountered one possessing the quantity or quality 
of his wit ; but he has seen the good-looking man 
who professes himself a "tyrant of the sex," and 
rails at their tongue, and is delicate in his choice of 
"household dispositions," and swears and talks 
himself into a belief that he will sooner be hung 
than married, and then, " most lame and impotent 
conclusion," falls in love with the first who dotes 
upon his precious person. These are marks which 
nature has written on man as if almost to confirm 
the accurate picturing of Shakspeare. The wit of 



70 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 

Shakspeare is wit in the old and true sense of the 
word, one of the brightest exertions of intellect, and 
distinct from that humor which we find in Fat 
Jack, in Dogberry, in the Clown in As You Like 
It, in Toby and Ague-cheek. Do we look for pure, 
classical, deep-thoughted wit, let us moralize with 
Jaques, let us steal behind him as he lies along 

"Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out 
Upon a brook that brawls along the wood," 

and laugh and weep by turns, at the follies and 
crimes of mankind. Let us bewail with Benedict 
the hapless fate of Claudio, who once loved "the 
music of drum and fife," but has changed to the soft 
wooing " of the pipe and tabor ;" or with Claudio in 
turn, conclude from Benedict's "brushing his hat 
of a morning," " that the sweet youth is in love ;" or 
jest with Mercutio, whose wit, too exquisite for a long 
life, makes its short day a blaze of fancy, and 
expires in mirth and merriment. The poetry of 
his comedies is scarcely exceeded in his tragedies, 
and of course is not equalled by any thing else in 
the language. The names of Rosalind and Yiola 
will awaken in every breast recollections of sweet 
words and noble thoughts, of friendship and love, 
and all the pure afiections, joyous and grievous ; 
and the smile that dimples and the woe that weeps, 
are so delightfully mingled, that we are as sorry to 



ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 71 

part with his sadness as we are glad to meet with 
his mirth. Next to Shakspeare stands Jonson, a 
man imbued with classical learning, and full of its 
best spirit. His Volpone is second only to Shaks- 
peare, combining musical numbers and fine poetry 
with searching wit. It shows the influence of 
avarice, sacrificing all the emotions of the heart at 
the altar of mammon. The father destroys his son, 
the husband tempts the chastity of his wife, the 
wife is ready to disgrace her husband, and all these 
things are the fruits of the " sacred lust of gold." It 
reads to us a deep lesson on the baseness of the 
heart, and the abandonment of the principles, 
induced by that passion which makes a man live 
like a slave, die like a fool, be buried without an 
affection to hallow his grave, and remembered for 
the hatred of those he injured, and the contempt of 
those he cherished. With more poetry and less 
powerful satire than Jonson, came Beaumont and 
Fletcher. Let all who admire Milton's Comus read 
in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, the original 
sources of many of his finest thoughts and sweetest 
expressions. The comedies of these two writers are 
rich fountains of delight to one who loves to drink 
of the " wells of English undefiled." 

There is much bombast scattered throughout 
their works ; but there is also so much sweetness, so 
much of the true music of words, so many delightful 



72 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 

touches, and so much pure wit, that we can par- 
don all their faults while we enjoy their beauties, 
and love the beauties even while we lament the 
faults. Of their numerous works, there is only one 
which really keeps the stage ; but there are others 
not inferior to it. The Chances, and the Two 
Noble Kinsmen, are two splendid productions, and 
equal to their Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, as 
great a favorite as is the last. Their satire is more 
local, and does not reach so far, as that of their 
gifted predecessors ; still each character, though it 
may not apply so well to its modern antitype, is 
drawn with a fidelity to itself, a keeping in all its 
parts, a perfect consistency throughout, which 
scarcely yields, even to the unquestioned master- 
spirits of the old drama. Next in rank to these, is 
Massinger. The play by which he is best known, 
The Fatal Dowry, is in our humble judgment, far 
inferior in merit to some others of his writings. 
The City Madam, for instance, has one character in 
it portrayed alone with power enough to stamp him 
with immortality, and that is the character of Luke. 
He is a man broken down by extravagance, and 
living on the bounty of a rich brother, who is 
introduced (in the scene where Luke is first promi- 
nently painted) as a hard-hearted and unfeeling 
creditor. Luke stands forth as the advocate of the 
oppressed debtors, to plead for mercy and compassion, 



ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 73 

and his reasons are so wise, so true, so eloquent, and 
so persuasive, as to wring a reluctant reprieve. It 
is indeed morality, adorned with all the enforce- 
ments of poetry, and with an enthusiasm that defies 
argument, and chains us in conviction. In the 
next pointed situation, we see the humble brother a 
slave to the caprices of the wife of his rich relative, 
fawning on both, and almost worshiping their 
wealth. In the next, there is a change; Luke 
presumes his brother to be dead, and we find him 
the self-supposed heir of an immense estate, hugging 
himself on his wealth, and this scene opens with his 
splendid soliloquy on the blessings of the miser. 
The natural result of this change, is, that he 
becomes a tyrant to his brother's supposed widow 
and orphan children; and the "strange eventful 
history" is concluded by his brother's return, and 
his merited punishment. The soliloquy we have 
mentioned, is similar, but superior to Ben Jonson's 
in the opening of Volpone ; but the character of a 
parasite in that play is superior even to Massin- 
ger's. We recommend this play to all who have 
appreciated the Fatal Dowry, and love their 
native language. Ford, who was before Massinger 
in order of time, is the last we shall notice of 
the older dramatists. His Lover's Melancholy 
is worthy of the age, and higher praise can we 
not bestow; his Broken Heart is also exquisitely 



74 ON ENGLISH COMEDY. 

affecting, and in some passages, Ford stands not 
dishonored beside those, whose names we have so 
unworthily mentioned. Thus much for the older 
dramatists, a body of men before whose genius 
all modern writers sink into comparative littleness ; 
compared with whose sublimity and wit, Milton 
alone can stand the test. To them may we award 
the name of founders of our tongue, and fathers of 
our drama. To them we should refer a foreigner 
acquainted with our language, as the sovereigns of 
our comic verse, and feel a noble pride in telling 
him that they represent the majesty of our dramatic 
literature. To them, the comic muse hath vouch- 
safed her choicest inspiration, and when they pour 
it forth we admire, and love, and worship at their 
bidding. 

M DCCC XXVIII. 



POETICAL PIECES 



THE LOST SHIP 



The gallant ship rode far and fast 

Upon her own blue wave : 
That ship through sun and gale had past 

Above full many a grave ; 
Where forms as fair, and hearts as warm, 
Had sunk beneath the conquering storm, 

And might was vain to save. 

Through hurricane and tempest loud, 
Through mountain seas on high, 

That gallant ship had safely ploughed, 
And dared the darkening sky. 

Trembling had changed to firmness ; tears, 

Called forth by mean or manly fears. 
Had dried in many an eye ; 

When she had dashed o'er hill and vale, 
And bade the breakers roar 

7* 



78 THE LOST SHIP. 

And vainly rage, while her proud sail 

Was bellying for the shore ; 
But now the light she loved to hail, 
The wild storm spirits' wrathful wail, 

She feels, defies no more. 

She hath gone down and carried there, 

To ocean's coral cells. 
The young, the high endowed, the fair, 

All that with genius dwells ; 
Hearts that were formed to do and dare, 
Yet doomed to die and perish, where 

No stone their story tells. 

She hath gone down ; the troubled sea 
Rolls its blue waves above them yet ; 

For whom the tear flowed fast and free, 

For whom bright cheeks were pale and wet 

And all is vain — proud death ! with thee. 

All earthly strength is mockery 
When thou and man have met. 

She hath gone down ; and buried deep. 

Those glorious forms are lying. 
Hushed by the billows' voice to sleep. 

Nor waked by mortal sighing. 
Nor prayers could shield, nor tears could keep 
Such forms from death ; these ye may weep, 



THE LOST SHIP. 79 

Tliese^ not their souls, for they have fled, 
Risen from mansions of the dead, 
To reahns of Kfe undying, 

To wait, till, buried hosts shall wake. 

Roused by His coming whose bowed head 
Bade death from his dark cell outbreak, 

When gaped the speechless earth for fear, 
And burst the temple's holy vail ; 

And priests and people quaked to hear, 
And lips and cheeks grew deadly pale, 

With terror smitten dread : 
Until, the angel tones that spake, 
When sang the morning stars on high, 
Shall say to earth, " awake, awake," 
And thunder forth in majesty, 

'• Dark sea, give up thy dead." 

M DCCC XXV. 



THE INDIAN. 



Away, away to forest shades ! 

Fly, fly with me the haunts of men ! 
I would not give my sunlit glades, 

My talking stream, and silent glen. 
For all the pageantry of slaves, 
Their fettered lives and trampled graves. 

Away from wealth ! our wampum strings 
Ask not the toil, the woes of them. 

From whom the lash, the iron wrings 
The golden dross, the tear soiled gem ; 

Yet bind our hearts in the pure tie. 

That gold or gems could never buy. 

And power ! what is it ye who rule 
The hands without the souls ? oh, ye 

Can tell, how mean the tinselled fool. 
With all his hollow mockery ! 

The slave of slaves who hate, yet bow. 

With serving lip, but scorning brow. 



THE INDIAN. 81 

And love, dear love ! how can they feel 
The wild desire, the burning flame, 

That thrills each pulse and bids us kneel — 
The power of the adored name ; 

The glance that sins in the met eye, 

Yet loved for its idolatry ! 

They never knew the perfect bliss, 

To clasp in the entwined bower 
Her trembling form, to steal the kiss 

She would deny, but hath not power ; 
To list that voice that charms the grove, 
And trembles when it tells of love. 

Nor have they felt the pride, the thrill. 
When bounding for the fated deer ; 

O'er rock and sod, o'er vale and hill. 
The hunter flies, nor dreams of fear. 

And brings his maid the evening prey. 

To speak more love than words can say. 

Have they in death the sod, the stones. 

The silence of the shading tree ; 
Where glory decks the storied bones 

Of him whose life, whose death was free ; 
And minstrel mourns his arm whose blow 
The foeman cowered and quailed below? 



82 THE INDIAN. 

No ; they confined and fettered, they 
The sons of sires to fame unknown. 

With nerveless hands and souls of clay. 
Half life, half death, loathe, but live on ; 

And sink unsung, ignobly lie 

In dark oblivion's apathy. 

Poor fools ! the wild and mountain chase. 
Would rend their frail and sickly forms ; 

But for their God, how would they face 
Our bands of fire, our sons of storms : 

Breasts that have never recked of fears. 

And eyes that leave to women, tears. 

They tell us of their kings, who gave 
To them our wild, unfettered shore ; 

To them ! why let them claim the wave. 
And hush its everlasting roar ! 

Then may we own their sway, but hark. 

Our warriors never miss their mark. 

Away, away from such as these ! 

Free as the wild bird on the wing, 
I see my own, my loved green trees, 

I hear our black-haired maidens sing ; 
I fly from such a world as this. 
To rove, to love, to live in bliss ! 

M DCCC XXV. 



TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 



Thou king of birds I earth's meanest fool can laugh 

at thee, whose reign 
Was far, far up, where man's dull orb may gaze 

and gaze in vain ; 
The thunder's mark, the splintered rock, were 

palaces of thine. 
Yet thou art here, thine eye is sad, and tears shall 

sully mine. 
Thine were the clouds, their thick dark forms 

pavilioned thee about. 
From whence like coUied midnight's flash, that eye 

looked fiercely out ; 
Thy footstool, earth's far summit ! there thou sat'st 

to scorn the world. 
Thy wing was bathed in God's own light; alas, that 

wing is furled. 



84 TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 

The thunder communes not with thee, the hght- 

ning passes by ; 
The youngj the free, the unfettered brave, it scathes ; 

thou canst not die ! 
Nobly and proudly thus to die, to them alone is 

given. 
The flashing meteors of this world, the chosen ones 

of heaven ! 
Oh, had'st thou fallen in thy flight to dare the rising 

sun. 
Upon thine own proud battle-field dying with 

victory won ; 
Or had thine eye grown dim with age, not with 

excess of light, 
Yielding to time the triumpher, yet braving him in 

might ; 
Or soaring up with pinions proud above these walls 

of space. 
Closed on the sceptred hand of Jove, thine own 

appointed place ; 
Or winging downwards far away, where storms in 

thunder break, 
Scorning the river's puny wave, spurning the un- 

rippled lake ; 
There, seated on some mountain swell, communing 

with the gale. 
Flashed a last lightning glance around, and died 

without a wail : 



TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 85 

But here, why should such thoughts awake, a 

captive and a slave. 
Thou canst not spring from chains of earth into 

thine own concave; 
The pinion that hath borne thee once, is clipped, 

and thou art here, 
And thou couldst weep, but that thine eye, hath 

never known a tear. 
Thou sittest in sullen silence here, 'midst taunts and 

mockery ; 
Oh, for one glorious hour, thou criest, one moment 

of the free. 
This wing should spread, this eye once more, be 

bright as heaven's own beam ; 
One glance, one spring, and far away — aye, 'tis a 

splendid dream. 
Why cannot such bright dreams be true ? the hopes 

and joys of man. 
Soar up to heaven as thou hast soared, yet die where 

they began. 
The mind whose flight is far, must droop, its eye be 

dim in night ; 
Thou art that mind in weal and woe, in darkness 

and in light. 
There was a heart and eye like thine, the world 

shall tell the tale. 
For at the kindling of that eye, his proudest foes 

grew pale ; 



»6 TO A CHAINED EAGLE. 

Yet died he as the veriest slave, fettered in all but 

heart. 
Captive, enchained, yet all unquelled — emblem of 

him thou art. 



M DCCf: XXV. 



THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR. 



The king sat on his throne, 

In gold, and gems, and purple pride, 
And gathered as rays around the sun, 
Were warriors at his side ; 
The famed in council, the foremost in field. 
The tongue that could charm, and the nerve that 
could wield. 
Were called to the royal feast ; 
And there had the pride of the victor displayed. 
The spoils of the vanquished and slave, and arrayed 
The wealth that had bitterly, bloodily paid, 
The crimes of the glorious East. 

There was beauty in that hall ! 

The loveliest forms and the brightest eyes, 
Lips whose kisses could never pall. 

Bosoms that throbbed to the youngest sighs, 
Of the first pure passion ; Oh ! sweeter that kiss, 
That sigh in the fulness of early bliss, 



88 THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR. 

Than a life of dallying, lingering love 1 
The stings of this world are forgotten, one dream, 
Like the blue summer sky in the joyous stream, 
Hangs over and hallows, and makes it seem 

A pure reflection of heaven above. 

There was music in that hall ! 
Strains of glorious sound that fell. 

On the spell-bound ear like the waterfall. 
With its rushing sheet and dancing swell ; 
The heaving heart, and the sparkling eye, 
Confessed and crowned the melody 

As it sweetly floated round ; 
And the sigh, the sob, and the crimson flush, 
And fear's pale hue, and love's warm blush. 
Like the proud sea's following surges rush ; 

And the soul is a slave to sound. 

There was wine upon that board ! 

The goblet sparkled bright. 
As the rich red juice was freely poured. 
With its glancing, bubbling light ; 
As it kissed the brim it far outshone 
The gem that was proudest where gems were 
strown. 
Thick as stars in the blue midnight ; 
They quafled, the heart was glad, the eye 



THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR. 

Danced in its borrowed brilliancy. 
And the pulse of love grew warm and high 
With joy and passionate might. 

There's terror in that hall ! 

Gone is the color from flushing cheek - 

There is a spell on the festival ; 

Eye cannot lighten, lip cannot speak ; 
Fallen the red goblet, wine like rain, 
Floods the cold marble, hush'd the strain. 

Is echoed no more by the stilly heart ; 
Silence, pale silence, hath reared her throne. 
Where sounded the revellers' merry tone ; 
The feast is broken, the revel is done, 

And yet they may not part. 

Mark their prince's hurried breath, 
duivering lip, and fixed eye ; 

He hath seen the sign, it speaks of death, 
Of sceptre lost, of power gone by ; 
It was not human, that severed hand. 
It moved not, wrote not, at man's command — 

It was God's own prophecy ! — 
And now the winds unheeded moan, 
In the halls of haughty Babylon, 
And the pilgrim's footstep long and lone. 

Echoes His victory ! 



8* 



TO POMPEII. 



I ROVE through thy deserted streets, inhale 
The atmosphere of centuries gone by. 

In sad reahty ; while ghast and pale. 
Around the haunts of their mortality, 

Distinct to fancy's sight, are gathering fast, 

" Their cerements burst/' the spirits of the past. 

Had they but voices ; could the buried speak ; 

Would they not speak in thunder ? Italy ! 
On thy degenerate head their wrath would wreak 

A curse, as loud and deep as the vexed sea ; 
The curse of those, whose blood gushed forth in 

waves. 
To free thy soil, thou heritage of slaves ! 

" Curse on thy palsied arm that will not strike, 
As struck our Brutus to the tyrant's heart ! 

Is there not one among thy children, like 

That dread avenger ? one whose blood will start. 



TO POMPEII. 91 

To think of our old might ! not one to weep. 
That Roman souls should in such bondage sleep ?" 

I am a pilgrim and a stranger, yet 

Even I can blush, can weep for thy foul chains ; 
I cannot look upon thee, and forget 

The rich proud blood that fills thy recreant veins ; 
But tears of shame and sorrow course my cheek, 
And tell what words in vain essay to speak. 

The eagle that embraced each hall and fane 
Within the shadow of his warrior wing. 

Is quelled and dark : oh, ne'er shall he again. 
From bonds of earth in his old glory spring, 

Upon the cloud of conquest poise his form. 

To raise and rule the battle's thunder-storm. 

Where are thy gods ? they who were ever nigh 
To combat in thy cause, why come they not 

Clothed in the thunder of their majesty, 
To glorify again each hallowed spot 

With their proud presence, and to scourge in wrath, 

The haughty Christian from their people's path ? 

Where is high Jove, the cloud-compeller ? where, 
The young Apollo, beautiful in might ; 

And she, the sea-foam's seed, the very air 
Grew odorous of love where she did light ; 



92 TO POMPEII. 

And the fierce god of armies ? Ye can say, 
Shrines of forgotten worship, where are they. 

Ye answer not, yet in your echoing hahs 
There is a voice ; your silence is not dumb ; 

There is a voice ; louder than words, that calls 
On those who plume them in their pride, to come, 

And, 'mid your trophies of divine decay. 

To muse on pride, mightier, yet passed away. 

And from your ruins to the mind's quick ear, 
It wisely says, what, though the earth inhume 

All that is earth's ? the soul can laugh at fear, 
In new existence 'mid destruction's bloom ; 

And gain the meed, to virtue only given. 

Glory on earth and diadems in heaven. 

M DCCC XXVI. 



THE MARTYR. 



It was a day of awe and fear. 

And populous Rome had gathered then 
In her vast amphitheatre 

The world's proud lords and victors ; men, 
Or beasts, who came to glut their eyes 
With tortures and with agonies. 

But he, the victim of that day, 
Stood firm and fearless, not a sign 

Of dread, did that calm face betray ; 
Once, and once only round the hue. 

Of that unbroken multitude. 

His dark eye flashed, his lip subdued, 

With strong but momentary power. 
Some inward working ; it might be 

Some thought, some memory of an hour 
Happier than this, when he was free 

From bonds unused to Roman limb : 

But for His cause how dear to him ! 



THE MARTYR. 

There came a voice unto his ear, 

He heeded not, it came again ; 
He roused him from his dream to hear ; 

It was his sovereign's ; on the plain, 
Beneath Rome's eagle lost and won. 
Won by his own right hand, that tone 

Had bid his comrades wreath him there 
With laurels, such as victors wear ; 

But now that voice unwelcome came, 
The voice of one who counselled shame ; 

Calmly the martyr stood, nor tear 

Was in that eye, nor mark of fear. 

Prince, I am ready; this cold blood 

Was warm, when it gushed forth for thee 

Upon the plain where terrors stood ; 
But it can flow, and thou shalt see 

A Roman's life blood freely given. 

Aye, willingly as rain from heaven. 

And when thou seest this eye unquailed. 
This heart untroubled, unassailed. 

Think not of stoic constancy. 
Child of a weak philosophy ; 

But know how well a Christii^n's faith 

Can bear him up to conquer death. 



THE MARTYR. '-^^ 

Yes, for that faith. His faith who died 

On the accursed tree, I dare 
The scaffold's terrors, all that pride, 

And priestly malice can prepare ; 
All that the heart and frame hath riven, 
All cannot shake my hope of heaven ! 

Hear, soldier ! thou hast bravely stood. 
Fearless of death on fields of blood, 

And saved from shame these folds that fly 
In pride above our canopy ; 

And canst thou, wilt thou yield the life, 

So nobly perilled in the strife 

Upon that scafibld ? think what pains 
Will rack thy form while life remains ; 

And worse, far worse, what lasting shame, 
Shall taint thy blood and blot thy fame ! 

Will thou not bow ? one look, one sign, 

Will make the proffered mercy thine. 

No answer ! by the gods on high. 

Thou scornest our boon — then, traitor, die ! 
Traitor ! the old man calmly said. 

And sadly smiling, raised his head : 
Traitor ! then fixed his glance and broke 
The death-like silence as he spoke. 



THE MARTYR. 

I speak not now, my prince, to crave 
The least, the meanest boon, thy power 

Could offer me ; the dark, dark grave. 
Is bright and welcome in this hour, 

To one whose faith hath fixed his gaze 

On realms that know not hours nor days. 

I may not, will not reck of life, 

For it to me is in the leaf, 
The autumn leaf, which the last strife, 

The latest struggle (long or brief, 
It matters not,) shall wrench away. 
To perish with its kindred clay. 

Thou sayest that I have perilled it ! 

'Tis well ; and shall I basely now 
To your idolatry submit. 

Abjure the faith which I avow. 
For what, even for thy tinselled show ! 
No, by the faith I cherish, no. 

Look on these locks, they're thin and gray^ 

The frosts of near a century 
Have whitened them ; look, then, and say 

How worthless, valueless to me, 
Were the poor minutes I could live. 
And all the honors thou couldst give. 



THE MARTYR. 97 

But were they all eternal ; were 

Each hour a life revived, renewed. 
As the undying eagles are ; 

Not for that vassal multitude, 
Not for your diadem and throne, 
The proudest, earth hath ever known ; 
Would I exchange this hour of death. 
The martyr's victory and his wreath. 



M DCCC XXVI. 



THE CLOUDS 



The clouds have their own language ; unto me 
They have told many a tale in by-gone days, 

At twilight's hour, when gentle reverie 

Steals o'er the heart, as tread the elvish fays, 

With their fleet footsteps on the moonlit grass, 

And leave their storied circles where they pass. 

So, even so, to me the embracing clouds, 

With their pure thoughts leave holy traces here, 

And from the tempest-gathered fold that shrouds 
The darkening earth, unto the blue, and clear, 

And sunny brightness of yon arching sky, 

They have their language and their melody. 

Have you not felt it when the dropping rain 

From the soft showers of spring hath clothed 
the earth 

With its unnumbered offspring ? felt not, when 
The conquering sun hath proudly struggled forth 



THE CLOUDS. 99 

In misty radiance, until cloud and spot 
Were blended in one briglitness ? can you not 

Look out and love when the departing sun 
Enrobes their peaks in shapes fantastical 

In his last splendor, and reflects upon 

Their skirts his farewell smile ere shadows fall 

Above his burial like our boyhood's gleams 

Of fading light, or like the " stuff of dreams" ? 

Or giving back those tints indefinite, 

Yet brightly blending, there to form that arch, 

Whereon the angel-spirits of the light 

Marshalled their joyous and triumphant march, 

When sank the whelming waters, and again 

Left the green islands to the sons of men ? 

Oh, then as rose each lofty pile, and threw 
Its growing shadow on the sinking tide, 

How glowed each peak with the resplendent hue, 
As its new lustre told that wrath had died, 

Till the blue waves within their limits curled, 

And that broad bow in beauty spanned the world. 

Gaze yet again, and you may see on high 
The opposing hosts that mutter as they form 

Their stern battalions, ere the artillery 
Bids the destroying angel guide its storm ; 



100 THE CLOUDS. 

If you have heard on battle's eve the low 
Defiance quickly uttered >to the foe, 

When the firm ranks gaze fiercely brow on brow, 
And eye on eye, while every heart beats fast 

With hopes and fears, all feel, but none avow. 
Pulsations which perchance may be their last, 

Whom the unhonored sepulchre shall shroud ; 

If you have seen this, gaze upon that cloud : 

How from the bosom of its blackness springs 
The cleaving lightning kindling on its way, 

Flinging such blinding glory from its wings, 
That he who looks grows drunk with its array 

Of power and beauty, till his eye is dim, 

And dazzling darkness overshadows him. 

Oh, God ! can he conceive who hath not known 
The wondrous workings of thy firmament, 

Thine untold majesty, around whose throne 
They stand, thy winged messengers, or sent 

In light or darkness on their destined path. 

Bestow thy blessings, or direct thy wrath. 

Then here, in this thy lower temple, here 
We kneel to thee in worship; what, to these 

Symbols of thine, wherein thou dost appear, 
Are painted domes or priestly palaces ; 



THE CLOUDS. lOi 

On this green turf, and gazing on yon sphere, 

We call on thee to commune and to bless. 
And see in holy fancy each pure sigh, 
Ascend like incense to thy throne on high. 



M DCCC XXVI. 



TO MAY. 



Come, gentle May ! 
Come with thy robe of flowers, 
Come with thy sun and sky, thy clouds and 
showers, 

Come, and bring forth unto the eye of day, 
From their imprisoning and mysterious night, 
The buds of many hues, the children of thy light. 

Come, wondrous May ! 
For at the bidding of thy magic wand, 
Gluick from the caverns of the breathing land, 

In all their green and glorious array 
They spring, as spring the Persian maids to hail 
Thy flushing footsteps in Cashmerian vale. 

Come, vocal May ! 
Come with thy train, that high 
On some fresh branch pour out their melody, 

Or carolling thy praise, the live-long day, 



J 



TO MAY. 103 

Sit perched in some lone glen, on echo calling, 
Mid murmuring woods, and musical waters falling- 

Come, sunny May ! 
Come with thy laughing beam, 
What time the lazy mist melts on the stream, 

Or seeks the mountain top to meet thy ray, 
Ere yet the dew-drop on thine own soft flower, 
Hath lost its light or died beneath his power. 

Come, holy May ! 
When sunk behind the cold and western hill, 
His light hath ceased to play on leaf and rill. 

And twilight's footsteps hasten his decay; 
Come with thy musings, and my heart shall be 
Like a pure temple consecrate to thee. 

Come, beautiful May ! 
Like youth and loveliness — 
Like her I love ; oh, come in thy full dress, 

The drapery of dark winter cast away ; 
To the bright eye, and the glad heart appear, 
Glueen of the spring and mistress of the year ! 

Yet, lovely May ! 
Teach her whose eye shall rest upon this rhyme 
To spurn the gilded mockeries of time, 

The heartless pomp that beckons to betray. 



I TO MAY. 

And keep as thou wilt find that heart each year, 
Pure as thy dawn, and as thy sunset clear. 

And let me too, sweet May ! 
Let thy fond votary see 
As fade thy beauties, all the vanity 

Of this world's pomp, then teach, that though 
decay 
In his short winter, bury beauty's frame, 

In fairer worlds the soul shall break his sway. 
Another spring shall bloom eternal and the same. 

M DCCC XXVI. 



FORGET ME NOT. 



Forget me not, forget me not ! 

It is the language of the heart. 
That hallows each accustomed spot. 

Whence we prepare to part ; 
The haunt of holy infancy, 

And sunny childhood's dreamy spot. 
Call the big tear into the eye. 

And say, forget me not. 

The mutual vow, the chaste embrace, 

The blushing look of love ; oh, what 
Can dim their brightness or efface. 

Their fond forget me not ? 
The passionate flame of boyhood's hour. 

The flame half cherished, half forgot, 
Swells on the soul with stifling power. 

And throbs, forget me not. 

The friendships of the dead appear. 
The memories death can never rot, 



106 FORGET ME NOT. 

And ring upon the mind's still ear, 

Their sad forget me not. 
Voices like morning music wake 

A thrilling crowd from memory's grot, 
Till the heart's chords in sorrow shake, 
- To their forget me not. 

Souls with our kindred souls that blent. 

Faces that brightened our dark lot, 
And eyes come back, all eloquent. 

With their forget me not : 
The thought from which the heart shrinks back. 

Is that we must unmemoried rot ; 
The hope that lightens hfe's dull track. 

Is this forget me not. 

M DCrC XXVI 



FOREST LEAVES 



Come hither among the forest leaves. 

Yellow, and red, and blue, 
And see how the sighing autumn weaves 

Her robe of every hue ; 
To mantle the year that gorgeously dies. 

Like the sunset's pomp away. 
And to make the grave where the summer lies, 

A mockery of decay. 

Come hither among the forest trees, 

You have seen their summer dress, 
When birds were trilling their melodies, 

From bowers of loveliness ; 
Come where the leaf so green and gay. 

In sun and wind so free. 
Is doomed to wither its bloom away, 

Upon the sorrowing tree. 

Come hither among the forest trees. 
When the autumn moon shines clear. 



108 THE FOREST LEAVES. 

And the cold and moaning autumn breeze, 

Holds mournful revel here ; 
While his fitful gusts are piping shrill, 

The dying leaves among, 
Which wake from their bed by the dropping rill. 

To dance to his midnight song. 

Come hither among the forest leaves. 

And weep, oh, well you may. 
For cold is the heart that never grieves, 

O'er the pride of death's array ; 
But colder still is the heart that weeps 

Its precious tears in vain. 
Nor knows that the leaf which sweetly sleeps, 

Shall in beauty bloom again. 

M DCCC XXVll. 



MISSOLONGHI: 



Greece had a fortress yesterday • 
The flag of freedom waved upon 
Its battlements ; but morning's ray 
Beholds it not : the glorious sun 
Threw his last beam upon its fold, 
A beautiful beam of light and gold ; 
That glorious sun hath risen again, 
Hurrying the clouds from vale and wave. 
And seeks in splendor, but in vain, 
The banner of the brave. 

Within that fortress yesterday, 

There beat seven thousand hearts of mould 

As tameless as the stern array 

Of heroes at Thermopylae ; 

Their own three hundred sires of old, 

Who panted for the fight, the pall, 

As young hearts for the festival. 

And fought till it was time to die ; 

Who found the death they longed to meet, 

10 



no MISSOLONGHI. 

And perishing in victory, 
Were conquerors in defeat. 

Around that banner yesterday, 
With eye of fire and arm of nerve, 
They swore their falchion in the fray. 
Their arm on its avenging way, 
From honor should not swerve ; 
That sooner far that arm should fall, 
Shrunk, powerless, palsied, by each side ; 
That blade in danger's loudest call, 
Each craven's fear deride ; 
Each eye should life and light resign. 
Each stone beneath their feet should be 
Sprinkled with blood a fitting shrine. 
Oh, liberty ! for thee. 

And in the gloomy clouds of night, 
The crescent moons of Moslem sway, 
As if they feared to see the light. 
Came on their darkened way ; 
And they, the noble and the brave, 
Were slaughtered by the infidel ; 
And th^re was not an arm to save, 
Or succor those who freely fell 
For freedom's name, yet falling, left 
To Greece their noble legacy, 
A hope which tyrants have not reft, 
Laurels which gathered from the tree. 



MISSOLONGHI. 1" 

That glory shields from time and theft, 
Bloom in fresh immortality ; 
And than all these that holier gift, 
A martyr's memory. 

They swore each stone should be a shrine 

Of sacrifice to liberty ; 

And it shall be a shrine, for there, 

The pilgrim's step, the patriot's prayer, 

Shall linger, shall ascend on high : 

And freedom ! thou shalt make it thine. 

Thine as thou madest their land of yore ; 

The spot on which Bozzaris died. 

The grave of him whose bright harp wore 

The cypress wreath, too soon for thee. 

Who left his own free foreign shore. 

To battle by thy side ; 

Yes, holy these shall ever be. 

And thou shalt make that fortress ground, 

A temple sacred unto thee. 

And lovely to the brave and free. 

From sea and land who gather round. 

And there thy Grecian sons shall falter. 

Their sad proud prayers upon thine altar. 

And make each breeze that round it stirs, 

Thick with the vows of worshippers. 

M DCCC XXVII. 



T O 



Dear girl, full many a time have I 

Seen cheeks of as transparent hue, 
And lips as purely rich, and eye 

As beautifully blue ; 
Yet never have I known a face. 

So darkly brilliantly divine, 
As when a kindling smile gives place 

To that dear frown of thine. 

Oh, some there are who love to look, 

When heaven is almost dim with light. 
And would not let the blue arch brook 

A cloud upon its sight ; 
But when around the conquering sun 

They thickly crowd, oh, then be mine, 
To gaze with rapture as upon 

That lowering eye of thine. 

For though my love has been to thee 
As true as hope, or faith on high, 



TO 113 

Yet oft of late have fallen on me 

The flashings of that eye ; 
And I am slave enough to bless 

The look that would each hope reprove, 
And worship even the loveliness 

That bids me cease to love. 



M DCCC XXVII. 



10* 



%^ 



CHANGES. 



I OFTEN muse at even tide, 

When present things are dimly seen, 
And scenes that day hath power to hide, 

Come back all fresh and green. 
And throng my sense, though all alone. 
Upon the changes I have known. 

For from our cradled infancy, 

The world is changing every hour ; 

Faces are gone we used to see. 
The bud becomes a flower. 

That blossoms in the dew and sun. 

And fades as other flowers have done. 

The morning sky that looked so blue, 
So very blue and full of mirth, 

When night's thick curtain it updrew, 
And looked upon the earth ; 

Was clouded at mid-day, but now 

It bears a rainbow on its brow. 



CHANGES. 115 

The cold in heart, and gray in head, 

May laugh my fantasies to scorn. 
And tell me that when I have read 

The changes they have borne ; 
Then I at length, and not till then, 
May descant on the change in men. 

Well let us then look round in thought, 
On those whom we have seen for years. 

And mark the wonders time hath wrought, 
And smile perhaps through tears, 

To feel with every face we view. 

That we ourselves are changing too. 

Yes, I alas, am changed in heart, 
I cannot smile, and may not weep ; 

The tear beneath my lid may start. 
Its course it must not keep ; 

I think on what I was, and then 

Would gladly be the same again. 



The same in childhood's merriment, 
That frolic lightness of the blood. 

The same in tears which seemed but sent, 
As dew upon the bud ; 

The same in hopes which turned to fear, 

And fears which came to disappear. 



116 CHANGES. 

The same in innocence of mind, 
The same in danger and delight, 

The same when mates were cross or kind, 
The same at morn and night ; 

The same, so I were changed I trow. 

From that dull being I am now. 

M DCCC XXVIII. 



THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT. 



Many a sad, sweet thought have I, 

Many a passing sunny gleam, 
Many a bright tear in mine eye. 

Many a wild and wandering dream ; 
Stolen from hours, I should have tied 
To musty volumes at my side ; 
Given to hours that sweetly wooed 
My heart from its study's solitude. 

Oft when the south winds, dancing free, 

Over the earth and in the sky, 
And the flowers peep softly out to see 

The frolic spring as she wantons by. 
When the breeze and beam, like thieves, come in 
To steal me away, I deem it sin 
To slight their voice ; and away I'm straying, 
Over the hills and vales a-maying. 

Then can I hear the earth rejoice. 
Happier than man may ever be ; 



118 THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT. 

Every fountain hath then a voice, 
That sings of its glad festivity ; 
For it hath burst the chains, that bound 
Its currents dead in the frozen ground, 
And flashing away in the sun has gone, 
Singing, and singing, and singing on. 

Autumn hath sunset hours and then, 
Many a musing mood I cherish, 

Many a hue of fancy, when 

The hues of earth are about to perish ; 

Clouds are there, and brighter I ween. 

Hath real sunset never seen : 

Sad as the faces of friends that die. 

And beautiful as their memory. 

Love hath its thoughts, we cannot keep, 

Visions the mind may not control. 
Waking, as fancy does in sleep. 

The secret transports of the soul. 
Faces and forms are strangely mingled, 
Till one by one they are slowly singled. 
To the voice and lip, and eye of her, 
I worship like an idolater. 

Many a big proud tear have I, 

When from my sweet and roaming track. 



THOUGHTS OF A STUDENT. 119 

From the green earth and misty sky, 
And spring and love, I hurry back. 
Then what a dismal dreary gloom, 
Settles upon my loathed room ; 
Darker to every thought and sense, 
Than if they had never travelled thence. 

Yet I have other thoughts, that cheer 
The toilsome day, and lonely night, 
And many a scene and hope appear, 

And almost make me gay and bright. 
Honor and fame that I would win. 
Though every toil that yet hath been 
Were doubly borne, and not an hour 
Were brightly hued by fancy's power. 

And though I may sometimes sigh to think. 
Of earth, and heaven, and wind, and sea, 
And know that the cup that others drink, 

Shall never be brimmed by me ; 
That many a joy must be untasted, 
And many a glorious breeze be wasted, 
Yet would not if I dared repine, 
That toil and study and care are mine. 

M DCCC XXVIII. 



SIGNS OF LOVE 



I HAVE read full many a witching tale of love in 

by-gone years, 
Its deep sweet sighs, its timorous hopes, its raptures 

and its tears, 
And yet with all my lore of love, I never could 

divine, 
If it hath ever deigned to dwell within this heart of 

mine. 

Fair lady, then I come to thee, and by that full 

black eye, 
Whose drooping lash just half conceals its soft 

quick witchery, 
I know that thou canst spell me right, the story I 

would read, 
If the words I dare to whisper thee, be proofs of love 

indeed ! 

I cannot well remember now, that I have lately 

known 
One single form or face I thought unrivalled and 

alone : 



SIGNS OF LOVE. 121 

Yet many a form of winning grace, and look of 

mirth and light, 
In all the pride of loveliness have flashed upon my 

sight. 

And I have stopped and gazed, and yet have turned 

to gaze once more 
At charms 'twere not idolatry, I fancied, to adore ; 
And still, with scarce a pang I saw the beautiful 

depart. 
And felt though they had dimmed mine eye, they 

could not touch my heart. 

But I can just recall to me, some few short years ago, 
How there was one who shared with me my boyish 

weal and woe. 
And rambled with me many a time, when spring 

was on the earth, 
And the birds were coming back with songs, and 

buds were just in birth ; 

Or when the autumn sunset spread its many a 

golden hue 
Upon the clouds, and leafy earth, and sky and 

stream of blue, 
And how we talked till voice and lip trembled 

unconsciously. 
And how I blushed, and looked at her, who blushed, 

and looked at me ; 
11 



122 SIGNS OF LOVE. 

And how I feared lest she should find the passionate 

hope I felt, 
The strange sweet thought, the waking dream, that 

in my bosom dwelt ; 
Yet could have almost frowned on her, who would 

not always see 
The glance I hoped her own would meet in pride of 

modesty : 

And how when mirth was loud of laugh, and the 

eye was bright with bliss, 
And the cup was sparkling with the juice, I met 

with greeting kiss. 
Her name, one word, one thought of her, and 

memory came to fill 
My heart with pensive music, like the voice of 

autumn rill. 

But ah ! those days of young delight, I should have 

all forgot. 
But memory sometimes wakes within, and sighs that 

they are not, 
And 'minds me of the flower she pulled when the 

parting hour was nigh, 
And gave me with a blushing cheek and a big tear 

in her eye. 

I kept it, and I often loved in secresy to sit, 
And think it smiled and grew more green whene'er 
I looked on it : 



SIGNS OF LOVE. 



But T grew cold and careless, and it pined as if 

with grief. 
And now, whene'er I look, I find a moisture on the 

leaf; 

A single tear upon that leaf, and she who gave it, 

she, 
Has she too pined ? but I ! I am the fool of memory ! 
What, lady ? Do those dark eyes smile ? It cannot 

be that this, 
This melancholy musing thought, can be love's 

dream of bliss ! 

And now you sigh, as if to say, that in this world of 

ours. 
Grief steals round finest feelings as the dew hangs 

on the flowers. 
And passionate love, as if to show even joy grows 

sorrow here. 
Breathes its sweet odor in a sigh, and smiles but 

through a tear. 

M DCCC XXVIII. 



ON A SEAL, 



THE DEVICE OF WHICH WAS, THE SUN SETTING 
WITH THE MOTTO " JE REVIENDRAI." 



As fades the sun's departing light, 
On hill and wave and leafy tree, 
And the thick shades of coming night, 
Gather above his burial bright. 
In funeral majesty : 

So when we part ; when the last token 
Of love, that lights that eye, is gone, 
When the last speaking word is spoken, 
When the last breaking grasp is broken^ 
Dark fears come crowding on. 

But as the morning's eye hath found 

That sun rejoicing in his path. 
Breaking the cloudy chains that bound, 
Making the mists that linger round. 
All radiant with his wrath. 



ON A SEAL. 125 

So when that eye comes beaming back, 
With tales such eyes alone recite, 

Then the heart's sunshine gilds each rack 

Of cloudy fear that dims its track, 
Till all is lost in light. 



M DCCC XXVII. 



11^ 



TRANSLATIONS 



DE BERANGER 



LA VIEILLESSE. OLD AGE. 

We know that time, who wings us by. 

Though youth yet finds us warm and gay, 
Leaves footsteps in our cheek and eye, 

That warn us of decay ; 
But still at every step we see 

Fresh flowers spring up, sweet buds unfold. 
And feel 'tis happiness to be ; 

This is not to grow old ! 

In vain amid the festive scene. 

With sound of song, and light of wine, 
We soothe the heart, yet fresh and green, 

They tell us, we decline ; 
But even until the last dim hour^ 

To love, though limbs grow frail and cold. 
The joyous wine, the song's sweet power ; 

This is not to grow old ! 



TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 127 

Does the weak fair, who gaily took 

The worship of our frohc prime, 
Repeat to us with taunting look. 

The ravages of time ; 
At less expense more bliss to gain. 

And in a mistress, know we hold 
A friend, who shares each joy and pain ; 

This is not to grow old ! 

Still though our wonted passions keep 

Within our breasts their kindly sway, 
Fate speeds, then let us calmly sweep 

Together to decay : 
Thus from the corner of my age, 

To see, my friends, in virtue bold, 
The storms of life innoxious rage. 
And end with you its pilgrimage ; 

This is not to grow old ! 



LE CRT DE LA FRANCE. THE CRY OF FRANCE. 

Away with the Bourbons ! 'Tis France who 

exclaims : 
Too long have we borne your degenerate sway ; 



128 TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 

Oppressors ! we blush for your faces and names, 
Fly ! Fly to your dens ! Freedom kindles her 
flames : 

Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 

Away with the Bourbons ! their cruelties' dye, 
The pencil of Clio were weak to portray ; 
Yes ! hark to the voice of your victims ! their cry 
The gloomy abysses return to the sky : 

Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 

Away with them ! then shall our proud Tricolor, 
Our bow on the mountains, its splendor display. 
And " our Country, our Honor," the words we adore, 
The flag of our fathers shall hallow once more : 
Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 

Away with the Bourbons ! the Loire shall again. 
Reassemble its heroes, and call to the fray, 
And they who've forgotten to vanquish, shall then, 
'Neath our banners renew their old glory like men : 
Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 

Away with them! Aye ! and the hordes they have led 
To disgrace our free soil with their foreign array. 
Crush, Frenchmen ! the tyrants who basely betrayed, 
Then sought from strange banners inglorious shade : 
Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 



TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 129 

Away with the Bourbons ! my country arise, 
Regain the proud rank, thou shouldst honor today. 
Thou shouldst reign : then sweep off with their toys 

and their ties. 
The minions we hate, the vile race we despise : 
Away with the Bourbons ! away ! 



LES VETERANS. THE VETERANS. 

Ah, they have now almost forgot. 
Our service in the bannered wars. 
And we are fain to hide the scars. 

Trophies of hearts that wearied not; 
Jena and. Ulm can witness how 

Hands nerved to do, hearts throbbed to dare. 
And yet they say with scornful brow. 

Oh, they were there ! 



Yes, we were there, for honor there, 
Not for a chief, but France ; that nam( 
Wakes in each heart a filial flame, 



Alike in glory and despair ; 
Our mother calls, we fly to save. 

She bids, our blood flows free as air : 
In dark defeat, or well- won field, 

Still we were there ! 



130 TRANSLATIONS FROM DE BERANGER. 

Yet all the valiant could not fall, 
And sheltered now will they remain. 
Till France shall summon them again, 

And find them few, but fearless all ; 
Proud remnant of that host who came 

To shake the nations with despair ; 
To renovate thine olden fame, 

We still are there ! 

To shield our king, to guard his crown, 
In peril's path we boldly move 
To save a people whom we love. 

To crush a foe who fears our frown, 
And oh, when honor's voice shall sound. 

That voice shall not be lost in air ; 
Our country's living ramparts round. 

We shall be there ! 

Now we resign those blades that blazed 
Such lightning on the vaunting foe ; 
We lay our eagle ensigns low, 

Those meteors on which nations gazed ; 
But if our France, if glory high. 

Should summon us, the world shall hear 
Louder than triumph's note, our cry. 

Behold us here ! 



TO 



Oh well do I remember now, the time when first we 

met, 
And memory must forget to hoard all joy, ere I 

forget 
That form so dear, that front so clear, and the 

paleness of that face. 
That won me with its speaking lines of tenderness 

and grace. 

And then the meeting of our eyes, oh, years and 

years have flown. 
And yet upon my heart that glance is graven as on 

stone. 
And from that heart must life depart, before decay 

hath traced 
Its impress on that moment, or its memory defaced. 

For even now though thou art changed, and though 

that eye hath strayed 
To meet the glance another gives, I dare not to 

upbraid : 



132 TO 

For when I could and would upbraid, that look 

comes fresh through years, 
And dims the eye that shone with wrath, and turns 

my taunts to tears. 

How oft when spring came sweetly in, and woke 

the early flowers, 
I watched to meet your morning step, and cursed 

the lagging hours ; 
The rose you threw I treasured too, to feed my 

memory, 
But all its leaves and fragrance fled, and left the 

thorn with me. 

And even then I fondly dreamed, the faded might 

resume 
The fragrance of its dewy prime, the life of its young 

bloom ; 
But now I know, that even though the tree may bud 

once more, 
Nor sun, nor dew, nor breeze, can e'er its withered 

flower restore. 

Yet like the Israelite of old, who turned with linger- 
ing look. 

His eye upon the ruined fane. Lord's majesty for- 
sook, 



TO 133 

And offered there his evening prayer, and joyed to 

see arise 
From its neglected altar-stone, his morning sacrifice. 

So from the shrine, thy form once Imew, and yet 
thy memory knows, 

No other prayers were ever breathed, no other in- 
cense rose ; 

And even now, though desolate thou hast left it, it 
shall be 

The temple of my worship still, and consecrate to 
thee. 

M DCCC XXVIII. 



12 



LINES 

ON HEARING OF THE UNEXPECTED DEATH OF A 
YOUNG LADY. 



So young, so fair, so early called, 
I scarce know how to weep ; 
The blow that felled thee hath appalled. 
Even sorrow's self to sleep. 
Had I but dreamed thou couldst have died. 
The thought had caused my tears to start ; 
The rod that should have poured their tide, 
With sudden stroke hath petrified 
The gushings of the heart. 

Mournfully, tearfully, I know 

We watch the dull decline 

Of early hearts with joyous glow. 

And cheeks with blush like thine ; 

Yet in that sorrow's strongest sway. 

It is a sadly dear delight, 

To soothe the body's slow decay. 

And check the lingering spirit's flight. 



ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY. 135 

But oh, Stern death will coldly lay, 
His finger on that form, whose light 
An hour before was full and gay, 
And glorious in our sight ! 

So fair, so young, when last I heard 
The voice I loved to hear, 
It greeted me with welcome word: 
How hushed that pall-hid bier ! 
And when I saw that joyous eye, 
Brightening with every glance it gave, 
I could have idly laughed, if I 
Had dreamed so soon its radiancy 
Would darken in the grave. 

And even now that I have seen 
All death demands of life ; 
The things that are not, and have been. 
Seem in perpetual strife. 
Greeting and grieving, smiles and tears, 
The light laugh and the silent earth, 
In clouds and sunshine linger here, 
Joy smiles on sorrow, and thy bier 
Seems vocal with thy mirth. 

Yet let me wake, but not to sigh, 
Thy form is with the dead ; 



136 ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY 

Thy soul, thyself, thou couldst not die. 
The undying hath but fled. 
Death is a conqueror o'er the eye 
And cheek, but to the soul a slave : 
He opes its prison, bids it fly, 
And wings its joyous course on high. 
To him whose brightest victory, 
Was gathered from the grave. 



M DCCC XXVIII. 



STANZAS 



ON HEARING THAT THE OFFICIALS OF "WEST- 
MINSTER ABBEY HAD REFUSED PERMISSION TO 
BURY THERE THE BODY OF LORD BYRON. 



They have spurned the proud relics ! well, thus 
should it be ; 

Oh thus should the bigots who feared him in life, 
With the spirit of vampyres exultingly see, 

O'er his ashes at least, they were victors in strife. 

Let them peck at the laurels he nobly hath won, 
Let them try the full tide of his glory to stem ; 

Let the eagle who blazoned his breast in the sun. 
Be " hawked at," for scorning to grovel with them. 

As with Brutus of old, when Augustus denied 

A place by his rivals in patriot fame, 
Each Roman recalled his proud memory and sighed, 

And frowned on the tyrant, and murmured his 
name. 

12* 



138 ON LORD BYRON. 

Even so shall the Briton unborn, who shall tread 
Those stones which the genius of England has 
made 

All instinct with memory, turn from the dead, 
To ask where the bones of his Byron are laid. 

And then shall his cheek burn with blushes to know. 
That his country permitted these things of a day, 

To aim at the dead their inglorious blow, 

And to wreak their poor vengeance on genius and 
clay. 

Poor fools ! did they dream that their meanness 
could blot 
That glory whose blaze can all dimness consume ; 
That his claims in his coffin would all be forgot, 
That they buried his fame with his flesh in the 
tomb ! 

What recks it where that which held genius may 
sleep, 
Whether earth may rise o'er it, or oceans may roll ; 
The flight of the spirit what fetters can keep, 

And what death can extinguish the life of the 
soul. 

No, the treasures he gave us, the fame he bequeathed. 
Are ours ; yet we feel that the part which must 
die; 



ON LORD BYRON. 139 

His bones shall outlast the vile slanders they breathed. 
And be hallowed with worship wherever they lie. 

And if England reject them, old Greece will receive 
The relics of him who fell armed for her figfht : 

O'er the tomb of the bard shall her warriors grieve, 
In the muse of the bard shall her children delight. 

And when Freedom and Genius in triumph return, 
To rebuild their old temples, and visit the new, 

The first, shall an altar erect o'er his urn, 
And the strains of the second shall hallow it too. 

M DCCC XXVIII. 



TO 



Lady, when fools who hnger near, 

Tell thee how oft my heart will rove. 
They but abuse thine easy ear. 

And wrong my constant love. 
Their babblings could not tell thee, dear, 

How she the loving gentle dove. 
Wings her far wandering through all air, 

But nestles in the grove. 

Nay, love ! I would not swear, for thou, 

All simply witching as thou art, 
Knowest that the lips frame many a vow, 

From which the soul would start : 
Before one only shrine I bow, 

In changeless homage of the heart ; 
Thou doubt'st it, dear ! come, question now 

Its every hidden part. 

Ask of the nightly pillow where 

Her form, all grace, too sweetly came ; 



TO 141 

Ask of the lips which meant for prayer, 

Words that but spelt her name ; 
Ask of that dream which lingering there. 

With dear delusion thrilled my frame ; 
Ask of the morning thought, if e'er 

My love hath been the same. 

Ask of the day's romance, whose light 

Was but her worshipped memory ; 
The nerve that trembled in her sight ; 

The eye that could undazzled see 
The glance of power's meridian height, 

Abashed, if she but looked at me : 
Ask these if love so constant, might 

To her unfaithful be ! 

And even when that much-loved eye. 

My hope, my heart is garnered in, 
Hath turned from me its radiancy 

Another's glance to win ; 
Ask of that sad rebellious sigh. 

Which proudly swells, then breaks within 
This agonizing breast, if I 

Have ever constant been. 

Ask of long years whose every flower. 
Found in her smile, its sun and dew ; 



142 TO 

That smile which lit the brightest hour, 
And streamed its ray the darkest through ! 

And if all tell thee that its power, 

My love ne'er changed, but stronger grew ; 

Then ask her if that eye should lower, 
On worshipper so true. 



M nccc XXIX. 



SEA SONG 



Over the far blue ocean wave. 

On the ocean winds I flee, 
Yet every thought of my constant heart, 

Is winging", love, to thee ; 
For each foaming leap of my gallant ship. 

Had barbed a pang for me. 
Had not thy form, through sun and storm, 

Been my only memory. 

Oh, the seamew's wings are fleet and fast, 

As he dips in the dancing spray ; 
But fleeter and faster, the thoughts I ween, 

Of the dear ones far away ! 
And lovelier too, than yon rainbow's hue. 

As it lights the tinted sea. 
Are the daylight dreams and sunny gleams 

Of the heart that throbs for thee. 

And when moon and stars are asleep on the waves, 
Their dancing tops among, 



144 SEA SONG. 

And the sailor is winging the long watch hour, 

By the music of his song; 
When our sail is white in the dark midnight, 

And its shadow is on the sea, 
Oh, never knew hall such festival, 

As my fond heart holds with thee ! 



M acr.c XXIX 



TO 



Oh the spring has come again, love, 

With beauty in her train, 
And her own sweet buds are springing, 

To her merry feet again ; 
They welcome her onward footsteps. 

With a fragrance full of song. 
And they bid her sip from each dewy lip, 

Of the rosy tinted throng. 

Oh the spring has come again, love. 

And her eye is bright and blue 
With a misty passionate light that veils 

The earth in its joyous hue ; 
And a single violet in her hair, 

And a light flush in her cheek. 
Tell of the blossoms maids should wear, 

And the love tales they should speak. 

The sprins^ has come again, love. 
And her home is every where ; 

13 



146 TO 

She grows in the green and teeming earth, 

And she fills the balmy air ; 
But she dearly loves, by some talking rill, 

Where the early daisy springs, 
To nurse its leaves and to drink her fill, 

Of the sweet stream's murmurings. 

The spring has come again, love. 

On the mountain's side she throws 
Her earliest morning glance, to find 

The root of the first wild rose ; 
And at noon she warbles through airy throats. 

Or sounds in the whirring wing 
Of the minstrel throng, whose untaught notes 

Are the joyous hymns of spring. 

Oh the spring has come again, love. 

With her sky lark's cloudy song ; 
Hark ! how his echoing note rings clear, 

His fleecy bowers among ! 
Her morning laughs its joyous way, 

In a flood of rosy light. 
And her evening clouds melt gloriously, 

In the starry blue of night. 

Oh the spring has come again, love. 
And again the spring shall go ; 



TO 147 

And withered her sweetest flowers, and dead 

Her soft brooks' silvery flow ; 
And her leaves of green shall fade and die. 

When their autumn bloom is past, 
Beautiful as her cheek, whose tint 

Looks loveliest at the last. 

Oh, life's spring can come but once, love. 

And its summer will soon depart. 
And its autumn flowers will soon be nipped, 

By the winter of the heart ; 
But yet we can fondly dream, love. 

That a fadeless spring shall bloom, 
When the sun of a new existence dawns. 

On the darkness of the tomb. 



M DCCC XxIX. 



MY CHOICE. 



There is a light within her eye that brightens 

every gaze, 
And a rosy smile upon her lip, that a joyous heart 

betrays ; 
And a fairy frolic in her form that makes each 

motion seem 
As graceful as the bounding course of a laughing 

mountain stream ; 
The long and jetty lash that hides the deep eye's 

blacker hue, 
The rival roses in her cheek, her white brow's veins 

of blue, 
Her gentle and her joyous laugh, and the music of 

her voice. 
Have won my spirit unto her, and she shall be my 

choice. 

Her spirit is all gentleness, and yet her bearing 

high, 
And passionate thoughts sleep sweetly in the circle 

of her eye, 



MY CHOICE. 149 

And a pure and delicate pride seems ever in her 

breast to dwell, 
And breathes around her form the charm and magic 

of a spell ; 
So gentle, not a shaft of wit in malice does she dip, 
And satire's self comes smilingly and sweetly from 

her lip, 
And her look and tone whene'er we meet, they make 

my heart rejoice. 
And win my spirit unto her, and she shall be my 

choice. 

There may be eyes as deeply dark, and brows as 

fair to view. 
And cheeks as softly blended, and as beautiful of 

hue. 
And gentle hearts, with gentle thoughts, and gentle- 
ness of words, 
And voices like to her's that mocks the music of 

spring birds : 
I think there may be such, and yet I scarcely can 

say why. 
For as in visions of the night, they pass me idly by : 
But she can wield me with a word, one tone of her 

soft low voice — 
She hath won my proud soul unto her, and she shall 

be my choice. 



M DCCC XXX. 

13* 



C O W P E R 



To a warm heart unite a manly mind, 
Let playful humor blend with wit refined, 
Let him the charms which nature spreads, survey 
With rapturous eye, with answering skill portray ; 
His proudest notes of praise let virtue claim, 
And sin but hear his song to blush for shame ; 
Let his religion, " pure and undefiled," 
Be fixed though liberal, and though firm be mild ; 
Then with all these the bard's true fire combine. 
And taste shall laud, and virtue love the line : 
Both shall with jealous care protect his fame. 
And wreathe their brightest laurels for his name. 

And such was Cowper ! such the laurels fair 
He nobly won, and shall forever wear ; 
For he was nature's bard, and shunned for her. 
The city's crowded mart, its smoke and stir. 
Dwelt in her haunts retired, and loved to scan 
Her pure calm scenes yet uncorrupt by man ; 



COWPER. 151 

Her varying seasons sang with varying strain : 
The bris^ht young spring rejoicing on the plain. 
And summer's mellowing sun and flashing bloom^ 
And gorgeous autumn's fruitage and perfume, 
And dreary winter, when in cloud and storm 
He sternly stalks to wither and deform^ 
Then with glad pencil, 'midst its gloomiest scene, 
Showed the heart's heaven unclouded and serene. 
Where love, content, and self-approving worth, 
Encircling, bless the dear domestic hearth. 

Oft, when at morn, or noon, or " dewy eve," 
He wanders forth to think, perchance to grieve. 
How do I love in fancy's steps to go, 
To share his musing or partake his woe. 
While, as we pass, from every trembling spray, 
The warbling wild-bird cheers our devious way ; 
To learn from hut or hall, from tree or flower, 
Some natural lesson, taught with careless power ; 
Some graceful moral turned with easy art. 
To raise the mind, and purify the heart. 

The bard of virtue, for whate'er his lay. 

In feeling serious, or in humor gay, 

Yirtue was all his end, and in her cause 

He gained his proudest meed, her pure applause ; 

Against her foes in fight, his weapons, wit. 

Strong sense, keen satire, he was sure to hit ; 



152 COWPER. 

In venal senate or in courtly bower, 

In robes of holy lawn or purple power, 

Sin met his gaze the same, and found with him, 

Its tones all discord and its tinsel dim. 

And oh, when man's just rights awake his strain. 

And freedom bids him spurn the oppressor's chain, 

When her warm pulses swell along his line, 

Its throb how firm, its diction how divine ! 

It glows with fervent heat of patriot zeal, 

And nobly speaks, what freemen nobly feel : 

Yes ! he, the glory true, the virtuous fame, 

Which prouder lyres have sought, may proudly 

claim, 
" That not in fancy's maze he wandered long, 
" But stooped to truth, and moralized his song." 

But hark ! a higher note ! can human lyre 

Ask for its strings a more celestial fire ! 

Yes ; though this earth be fair, the world above 

Hath purer harmonies and holier love ; 

Though dear the strain with sweet persuasion 

crowned, 
Which spreads earth's kindliest charities around, 
And eloquent in love with noble plan, 
Endears, cements the brotherhood of man ; 
Yet heavenlier themes a loftier song require. 
And he who touched the prophet's lips with fire. 



COWPER. 153 

Will to the bard some glorious dreams supply, 
Whose verse uplifted, lingers in the sky ; 
Not that the poet's wing should always burn 
For heavenly themes, and earth indignant spurn, 
Or pass with careless glance or heedless tread, 
God's works below in rich profusion spread ; 
Yet let his " eye's fine frenzy," wisely roll, 
Let those who charm the sense improve the soul : 
Let them though winged for heaven and gods in 

birth, 
Stoop their proud plumes to bless and light the 

earth. 

Oh, had that bard whose bold and burning page 

Has stamped his name, the poet of an age. 

Given but to virtue's cause his noble fire, 

Which even while sinning, half redeems his lyre, 

And turned, while pure emotions burned within. 

His scorn for folly, to a scorn for sin ; 

Then hurled his moral thunder, till each stroke 

Made wrong and outrage tremble while he spoke : 

How had the sin he shamed, in silence slept. 

Or touched perchance, repented, while it wept : 

Oh had the bard been such, his crown how green. 

His life how pure, his parting how serene ! 

His dying hour, how golden its decay. 

What beams upon his mounting plumes would play ! 



154 COWPER. 

How would they seem with seraph strength to rise. 
While his voice joins the music of the skies, 
And heaven receives though hushed his earthly lyre, 
A welcome minstrel to the eternal choir. 

Such, such was Cowper ; such his golden crown : 
He soared to heaven to bring its blessings down ; 
He shared the Christian's faith, the Christian's fears, 
His trembling bliss, his ever-trusting tears. 
With him the saint may hope, the sinner melt, 
And all must feel, for what he taught he felt ; 
Felt while he taught in weakness, sin, and shame. 
The height, the depth, the wonders of His name ; 
" Without whom we are poor, give what He may, 
" And with whom rich, take what He will away." 

And he who now, though closely wed, and long. 
To lore which scorns the muse, yet sins in song ; 
If he with hand unskilled, though heart sincere, 
May build a rhyme which beauty deigns to hear ; 
Shall think his sin forgiven if she but deem. 
His feeble strain hath not disgraced his theme. 
Or bent with partial smile his toil to pay. 
Approve the theme, though she condemn the lay. 

M DCCC XXS. 



TO 



Lady, the stalk you gave to me, 

In all its fresh leaved greenness, brings 

Full many a moment's sunny glee, 

In radiance back on memory's wings : 

Those wings which like the eastern bird, 

Which shows each breeze a different dye, 

Darkly or brightly waft, thought stirred. 

Long bygone visions to the eye, 

As sorrow's gloom, or pleasure's ray, 

Upon their varying plumage play. 

And such come thronging round me now, 

Most glorious eyes of liquid jet. 

Lips Hybla honeyed, arching brow, 

And all of thee I worship yet, 

Glances on which I fastened mine ; 

How could I tear one glance away ? 

A voice whose music most divine. 

Melted to words from lips which lay. 

Just oped to let the sweet breath cleave them, 

Which slowly left, as loth to leave them. 



156 TO 

And visions of the wave come back, 

I dream again, the sunny swell 

Breaks round our prow's careering track, 

That prow it loves to lave so well ; 

Mountains swell round like giants, there 

They shoot their far blue crests, beneath 

Amid the shaggy robes they wear 

The swathing mist racks wildly wreathe, 

While far, far down the dwarfed woods standi 

In shade and sunshine o'er the land. 

A moment muse, does not yon height 
Seem like some elder son of fame. 
Towering aloft, where living light 
Sheds cloudless splendor on his name ? 
Are not those forms in misty maze, 
Proud souls yet in the storms of time, 
Struggling to catch some glorious rays, 
To light the darkling path they climb ? 
While yon secluded vales express, 
Thy bowers, domestic happiness ! 

Again I dream, see far displayed, 
How calm the golden ripples lie ; 
Now giving back our sails in shade, 
Now blue with the o'erhanging sky ; 
Now comes the wind, each warrior wave 
Flings his white war-cap on the breeze, 



TO 15' 

And rears his storm steed, free and brave, 
And onward to the battle flees, 
Tosses his httle hfe away, 
And leaves a foam, 'tis glory's play. 

Again, again 'tis night, and I 

Am wafting sadly to my home ; 

Sad as the last star in the sky. 

Sad as the last wave's lonely foam, 

And there are all I leave behind, 

The loved, the worshipped, and the lost, 

The hours have winged me like the wind, 

A spray upon joy's billow tost ; 

Those sunny hours have sped their last, 

And leave me here to mourn the past. 

Yet why lament, I came, I go, 

'Tis all that life's long toil can give. 

It can but fleeting bliss bestow, 

I loved, I left, is all we live ; 

Away with such vain thoughts, this world 

Is a proud race, and I would win, 

Yet lady, on life's tempest hurled, 

Or home's sweet shelter house within ; 

Amid these scenes shall memory be. 

And half her torch be lit by thee. 



M DCCC XXIX. 

14 



LOOK ALOFT. 



The following lines are founded upon the little story said to have 
been related by the late Dr. Godman, of the ship boy, who was about 
to fall from the rigging, and was only saved by the mate's impressive 
exclamation, " look aloft, you lubber !" 



In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale 
Are around and above, if thy footing should fail, 
If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart, 
" Look aloft !" and be firm, and be fearless of heart. 

If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow, 
With a smile for each joy, and a tear for each woe, 
Should betray thee, when sorrows like clouds are 

arrayed, 
"Look aloft" to the friendship which never shall 

fade. 

Should the visions which hope spreads in light to 

thine eye, 
Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, 
Then turn, and through tears of repentant regret, 
" Look aloft" to the sun that is never to set. 



LOOK ALOFT. 159 

Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart, 
The wife of thy bosom m sorrow depart, 
"Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb. 
To that soil where aifection is ever in bloom. 

And oh, when death comes in his terrors to cast, 
His fears on the future, his pall on the past, 
In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart, 
And a smile in thine eye, " look aloft" and depart. 

M DCCC XXX. 



MORNING MUSINGS AMONG THE HILLS. 



The Morn ! the Morn ! this mountain breeze, 
How pure it seems, from earth how free ; 

What sweet and sad morahties 

Breathe from this air that comes to me. 

Look down my spirit, see below, 

Earth darkly sleeps where shades prevail. 
Or wakes to tears, that vainly flow. 

Or dreams of hopes that surely fail. 

Why shouldst thou linger there, and burn 
With passions like these fools of time ; 

Unfold thy wings, their follies spurn. 
And soar to yon eternal clime. 

Look round, my spirit ! to these hills 
The earliest sunlight lends its ray. 

Morning's pure air these far heights fills, 
Here evening holiest steals away. 



MORNING MUSINGS AMONG THE HILLS. m 

Thus when with firm-resolvmg breast. 
Though bound to earth thou hvest on high, 

Shalt thou with earher hght be blest, 
More purely live, more calmly die. 

This darkling dawn doth it not bring 

Visions of former glory back. 
Arouse my spirit, plume thy wing, 

And soar with me on hoher track. 

Canst thou not with unclouded eye 

And fancy rapt, the scene survey 
When darkness bade its shadows fly, 

And earth rose glorious into day. 

Canst thou not see that earth, its spring 

Unfaded yet by death or crime. 
In freshest green yet mellowing. 

Into the gorgeous autumn's prime. 

Dost thou not see the eternal choir. 
Light on each peak that woos the sky. 

Fold their broad wings of golden fire, 
And string their seraph minstrelsy. 

Then what sublimest music filled. 
Rejoicing heaven and rising earth, 

14* 



162 MORNING MUSINGS AMONG THE HILLS. 

When angel harps the chorus swelled, 
And stars hymned forth creation's birth. 

See how the sun comes proudly on 
His glorious march ! before our sight 

The swathing mists, their errand done. 
Are melting into mormng light. 

He tips the peak, its dark clouds fly. 
He walks its sides, and shades retreat. 

He pours his flood of radiancy 

On streams and lowlands at its feet. 

Lord ! let thy rays thus pierce, illume 
Each dim recess within my heart ; 

From its deep darkness chase all gloom. 
And to its weakness strength impart. 

Thus let thy light upon me rise, 
Here let my home forever be ; 

Far above earth, its toys and ties, 
Yet humbly kneeling. Lord, to thee ! 



ELEGY ON AFRIC. 



A FAVORITE DOG OF A FRIEND. 



" In his duty prompt at every call, 
He watched." Deserted Village. 



Farewell, farewell, we think of thee, 
At each familiar step we trace, 

We miss thy mirth so full of glee, 
Thy bounding form of life and grace. 

We miss thine eye, whose look conveyed 
A welcome in each wistful glance, 

And bright with almost thought, portrayed 
A soul within thy countenance. 

We miss thy wakeful bark, when dawn 
Roused thee to hail the rising sun ; 

We miss thine evening bay long drawn. 
As wailing that the day was done. 

No more shall thine expressive fawn, 
Mute, pleading, eloquent, be tried, 



164 ELEGY OF AFRIC. 

Not all in vain to scour the lawn, 
Or gambol at thy master's side. 

No more, no more, shalt thou be found, 
In form beneath thy favorite tree ; 

Still, still, it sheds sweet shade around, 
But never more to shelter thee. 

Thy little playmates look for thee. 
With asking gaze, and lisp thy name, 

For thou wast glad to join their glee, 
And at their call familiar came. 

Ah, now those tiny fingers press 

Thy form, and hug thy neck no more ; 

Nor shout, nor call, nor kind caress. 
Can thine accustomed face restore. 

We saw that form so slowly waste. 
We heard thy low complaining moan ; 

We saw thine eye grow dim, yet haste 
To answer to each kindly tone. 

Yet, Afric ! as we think of thee. 
So faithful in thine humble lot, 

We spurn thee not from memory. 
We loved thee, and forget thee not. 

M DCCC XXXU. 



TO 



ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE BIRD. 



Alas, sweet cousin, how can I 

In harsh discordant rhyme rehearse, 

His sweet, sweet song whose melody. 
Had charms beyond the reach of verse ? 

Ahj I should need his tuneful art, 
His tone with more than music rife. 

In fitting numbers to impart, 
The tale of his harmonious life. 

And yet that tale how shortly told, 

One feast of flowers, one ceaseless strain ; 

At morn to plume, at eve to fold 
His wings, to feed and sleep again. 

A simple life of joyance his, 
A life of song, no care had he, 

Except perchance thy glance to miss, 
And in sad silence pine for thee. 



166 TO 

Blest in thy smile of sunshine ^iven. 

His pinions sought no softer sky : 
Happy to find his loveliest heaven. 

In the blue beauty of thine eye. 

And basking in that smile so bright. 
He had no wish his wings to free ; 

Found in its beam his full delight. 
And loved his sweet captivity. 

But ah, that eye, that joyous voice. 
No more his dreamy sleep shall break ; 

No more his little heart rejoice. 

Nor songs of warbling welcome wake. 

In vain spring woos with balmy breath. 
And bears sweet music on her wings ; 

The fine quick ear is dull in death. 
The answering throat no longer sings. 

His lonely mate has lost her cheer. 
Or if to song her bosom stir ; 

Fixes her tiny head to hear, 

The note that ne'er shall answer her. 

That note which hailed thee to the last, 
And called thee to his caofe to see, 



TO 167 

That he was happy, thus to cast 
His last, last lingering look on thee. 

Then since forever hushed his strain, 
Lay him in fitting grave to sleep, 

Where spring's soft dews and summer's rain, 
With gentle tears his death may weep. 

There let the first soft sunbeam fling, 
A fresher green o'er all the ground ; 

There the first lonely wild flower spring, 
And shed its sweetest fragrance round. 

Thither let each fond bird repair. 
At music's grave its vows to pay. 

Or doomed to die, seek refuge there. 
And swan-like sing its soul away. 

M CCCC XXXII. 



HYMN 



WRITTEN DURING THE PREVALENCE OF THE 
CHOLERA. 



Lord ! while the wastmg evil still 
Walks on in its mysterious path. 

The worker of thine awful will, 

The scourge of thine awakened wrath. 

Humbled in heart, low in the dust, 
We conscious kiss the avenging rod ; 

Confess thy judgment ever just, 
And trembling, own that thou art God. 

Yet, Lord ! wilt thou forever smite, 
Once more dread father, yet once more 

Lift to thy suffering people's sight. 
Thy healing signal as of yore. 

No offering meet, have we to make. 
No works, no rights, no self-proud plea ; 



HYMN. 169 

Mercy we beg, free for his sake 

Who died for us to reign with thee. 

Then shall we sing, thy pardon won, 
That union how sublimely sAveet, 

When in the Father and the Son, 
Thy justice and thy mercy meet. 



DCCC XXXIT 



15 



LINES 



WRITTEN IX THE ALBUM OF A VERY YOUNG LADY. 



Sweet Lilly, you know I am wedded 

To a ruthless and barbarous lore, 
Which all poets from instinct have dreaded^ 

And the muses devoutly abhor ; 
And they, like their lovely relations, 

Who our poetry make here below, 
Are rather averse from flirtations 

With men who are married, you know. 

Yet no matter, my promise is plighted. 

And though they wont smile on my need, 
I shall think all their frowning requited. 

Should you take but "the will for the deed ;" 
Besides I fear jilting their trade is. 

And they 're tyrants, so I shall not choose 
To trust the caprice of these ladies, 

But take you, my dear girl, for my muse. 



LINES. 171 

And now then, my sweet inspiration ! 

What fond prayer shall friendship put up ? 
What blessings of wealth, love, and station, 

Shall I pray, may o'erfiow in your cup ? 
Shall I wish you those graces, so winning 

Their way to our innermost heart. 
That we find there love's empire beginning, 

Ere friendship is warned to depart ? 

I would wish that your sky in life's morning, 

May be fair as a morn in SAveet June, 
That each scene with fresh verdure adorning, 

W^arm, cloudless, and bright be its noon ; 
And as calmly and tenderly shining. 

As the autumn sun dies in the west, 
Be your evening of age, as declining, 

It sinks slowly at night to its rest. 

All these do I wish you, yet, Lilly, 

I dare not thus cease this poor rhyme. 
For I fear I should wish for you illy, 

Did I ask but the mere gifts of time ; 
What's beauty ? why wish you to win it ? 

That eye, and that lip, and that brow. 
Were yesterday beauty, but in it 

The reptile is revelling now.. 



172 LINES. 

And wit, with its meteor flashes ; 

How dazzles it but to decay ! 
Can you find its quick flame in those ashes ? 

Can you call back its voice to that clay ? 
Yes. all idly my prayer had ascended, 

If one word in that prayer were forgot. 
In whose compass all blessings are blended, 

That friendship could wish for your lot. 

That word is religion ; fools flout it, 

And tell us 'tis nonsense and stuff, 
But believe me, dear girl, that without it, 

This world will be bitter enough ; 
And with it all joy will be heightened, 

And holier all friendship and love. 
And the darkness of sorrow be brightened, 

With a ray that beams but from above. 

And in death, be it late ere you Ve found it, 

It will make your couch prouder than kings'. 
For the angels of heaven shall surround it. 

With the radiance and rush of their wings ; 
Yes, safe will it guide you, if granted, 

Through earth's changes, and sorrows, and strife. 
Till a tree in God's paradise planted, 

You bloom by the river of life* 



M DCCC XXXIIl. 



31J-77-9 



